ERP change readiness for a community college

Challenge

Aims Community College (Aims) engaged BerryDunn to conduct an objective assessment of stakeholder readiness for ERP system change and to facilitate objective vendor discovery sessions. Vendor discovery was designed to increase Aims stakeholders’ awareness of the ERP marketplace and options available to the college.

Solution

BerryDunn’s higher education consulting team used Prosci’s ADKAR® change management methodology to help baseline individual Aims change readiness. The five stages of ADKAR® are: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. Each person must move through each stage to realize change acceptance.

We met with stakeholders to conduct an initial group analysis, and established a baseline level of readiness, presenting the results with Aims leadership. Based on the analysis, we provided suggestions for improving the readiness of Aims stakeholders.

BerryDunn then organized and facilitated one-day vendor discovery sessions, conducting surveys of Aims participants after each session. A final comparative survey of the vendors and an updated ADKAR® readiness survey measured changes from baseline.

Outcome

The outcomes of our work included:

• Established a baseline ADKAR® profile for Aims stakeholders
• Increased stakeholder awareness and desire for change
• Prepared stakeholders for the implementation phase
• Positioned the college to move from planning to implementation phase