ADKAR is Prosci's model of change at the individual level: five observable elements, in order, and the rule that you fix the earliest unmet element first.
The five elements
- A — Awareness: understand why the change is needed.
- D — Desire: choose to participate in and support the change.
- K — Knowledge: know how to change and what success requires.
- A — Ability: put new skills and behaviors into practice.
- R — Reinforcement: sustain the new way and prevent backsliding.
The fourth element is Ability, not "Adoption". The first is Awareness, not "Alignment". Decision, Action, and Results are not Prosci terms at all. Those three substitutions are the distractors the items use.
Knowledge versus Ability
This is the pairing the exam leans on hardest. Knowledge is knowing how; Ability is doing it.
Staff who finished training and can describe every step of a new performance platform but still route reviews through the old spreadsheet have Knowledge without Ability. The fix is coaching, practice time, and hands-on support, not more training.
Reading the timing
- Refusal to cooperate from a team that already understands the reason and knows the process: Desire. Awareness is satisfied, and Ability cannot be reached while they refuse, so Desire is addressed first.
- Drift back to old local handling twelve months after a shared-services go-live: Reinforcement, which is defined as sustaining the new way and preventing backsliding. Awareness and Knowledge were cleared long before go-live, so a sustainment failure is not an awareness problem.
The sequencing rule decides most of these items: identify every element that is satisfied, then act on the first one that is not.