about 3.3% of the exam content - about 90 minutes - 14 practice questions
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Reading
Projects produce deliverables. Deliverables only produce benefits when people
actually change how they work. A new GCHS intake system that no case manager uses delivers zero value,
no matter how well it was built, on time, and under budget. Supporting organizational change is the
work of getting people from the old way to the new way and making the new way stick.
Change management versus change control: learn this cold
These two phrases sound identical and mean completely different things. Exam writers exploit that
constantly.
Change management
Change control
What it deals with
People: adoption of a new process, tool, or way of working
Documents and baselines: modifications to scope, schedule, cost, or quality
Core question
Will people accept, use, and sustain this?
Should this modification be approved, and what is its impact?
Typical tools
ADKAR, Kotter, readiness assessment, communication and training plans, coalitions, reinforcement
Sponsor visibly, supported by the PM and change agents
Project manager, with the CCB deciding
Success looks like
Adoption, proficiency, and realized benefits
Approved, traceable, controlled baselines
Watch out
If a question is about a stakeholder requesting a modification to the deliverable, that is
change CONTROL: submit a change request and analyze impact. If a question is about stakeholders
resisting, not using, or reverting to old habits, that is change MANAGEMENT: assess
readiness, address the source of resistance, communicate, train, reinforce. Read for people versus
baselines.
ADKAR: change happens one person at a time
ADKAR (from Prosci) is a sequential model of what an individual needs to change successfully. The
stages must happen in order, and change stalls at whichever stage is unmet, which makes it a
diagnostic tool, not just a checklist.
Stage
What the person needs
What you do
Failure symptom
Awareness
To know why the change is happening
Communicate the reason, the risk of not changing
"Nobody told us why we are doing this"
Desire
Personal motivation to participate
Address what's in it for me, involve people, engage sponsors
Active or quiet resistance
Knowledge
To know how to change
Training, documentation, coaching
"I do not know what to do in step 3"
Ability
To actually perform in the real environment
Practice, floor support, mentoring, time to build skill
"I understood the class, but I cannot do it on a live job"
Reinforcement
Reasons the change sticks
Recognition, metrics, audits, removing the old system
Quiet reversion to the old spreadsheet
Note the Knowledge-versus-Ability distinction: training fixes Knowledge; only practice and support
fix Ability. Sending people to more training when the real gap is Ability is a very common wrong
answer.
Kotter's 8 steps: change at the organization level
Where ADKAR looks at the individual, Kotter looks at the enterprise.
1. Create a sense of urgency: make the case for why now, not someday.
2. Build a guiding coalition: assemble a credible group with enough authority
and influence to lead the change.
3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives: a clear picture of the future
state.
4. Enlist a volunteer army: communicate the vision widely and get broad
buy-in.
5. Enable action by removing barriers: fix structures, systems, and policies
that block the new behavior.
6. Generate short-term wins: deliver visible early results so belief grows and
skeptics quiet down.
7. Sustain acceleration: keep pressing; do not declare victory too early.
8. Institute change (anchor it in the culture): make the new way simply how we
do things here.
Two exam favorites: declaring victory after the first win (violates step 7) and launching a change
with no coalition, so the PM is pushing it alone (violates step 2).
The Satir change model: expect the dip
Virginia Satir's model describes how performance actually behaves during change, and it is the
honest answer to "why did productivity get worse after go-live?"
Late status quo: familiar performance, known problems, stable.
Foreign element: the new system, process, or rule arrives.
Chaos: performance drops below the old level; people feel incompetent, anxious,
and often want to go back. This dip is normal and expected, not a sign of failure.
Transforming idea: someone finds the insight that makes the new way work.
Practice and integration: performance climbs as the new way is exercised.
New status quo: performance settles above the original level.
The management lesson is that the chaos phase requires more support, not less, and that abandoning
a change during the dip guarantees you get the cost of change with none of the benefit.
Resistance: a signal to understand, not a wall to push
Resistance usually has a rational source. Common ones:
Fear of losing competence or status: an expert becomes a beginner again.
Lack of awareness of why the change is needed.
Distrust of leadership or of previous failed initiatives.
Perceived increase in workload, especially when the old work has not been removed.
Not being consulted; the change was done to people rather than with them.
Genuine, valid technical objections that nobody has answered.
PMI's expected behavior is to engage the resistant person one-on-one and find the root
cause first, then act on that cause. Escalating to a supervisor, mandating compliance, or
ignoring the objection are the wrong answers, and note that resistance sometimes reveals a real flaw
in the plan, which is free information.
Readiness, training, reinforcement, and benefits
Change readiness assessment: done before deployment, it measures
awareness, capacity, sponsorship strength, culture, and change saturation (how many other changes
people are already absorbing). Its output shapes the change plan.
Visible active sponsorship: Prosci's research has ranked it as the top contributor to change success for years.
Employees need to hear the why from the top leader, repeatedly. The PM cannot substitute for the
sponsor's voice.
Change agents / champions: respected peers embedded in each crew or office who
answer questions locally and model the new behavior.
Training and adoption support: role-specific, timed close to go-live (training given long before go-live fades), and backed with job aids and at-the-elbow help.
Reinforcement: recognition, adoption metrics, audits, updating job descriptions
and procedures, and retiring the old system so reverting is impossible. Without reinforcement,
organizations regress.
Benefits realization: benefits are tracked in the benefits management plan (often called the benefits realization plan) and
are usually measured after handover, often by operations rather than the project. Because benefits
depend on adoption, adoption metrics (percent of users active, percent of jobs logged in the new
system) are leading indicators of benefit.
Transition and transition readiness: the deliverable must be handed to
operations with documentation, support, and trained staff, or the change dies at handover.
Change in adaptive and hybrid delivery
Incremental delivery is itself a change-management strategy: small releases mean users absorb small
behavior changes repeatedly instead of one enormous shift, and each release provides feedback that
improves the next. Adaptive teams pair this with demos to real users, early access groups, and adoption
metrics reviewed each iteration. Hybrid GCHS projects often deliver technology incrementally while the
construction work runs predictively; the change effort has to cover both.
Key points
Adoption is the deliverable. When a question describes low usage, workarounds, or reversion, look for
the answer that diagnoses which ADKAR stage failed and acts there: awareness gaps need
communication, desire gaps need sponsorship and involvement, knowledge gaps need training, ability
gaps need practice and support, and reinforcement gaps need metrics and recognition.
Finally, two 2026 realities. Changes driven by AI adoption raise unusually strong
desire-stage resistance (people fear the tool is there to replace them), so transparency about intent,
involvement in design, and clear boundaries matter more than the technical rollout. And changes driven
by sustainability and regulatory pressure (new energy codes, elevation requirements,
ESG reporting for funders) are easier to gain awareness for when the external driver is explained
honestly, because the urgency is real rather than manufactured.
Practice Questions
1. Which statement correctly distinguishes change management from change control?
Change management governs modifications to the project baselines; change control prepares people and teams for adoption
Change management prepares people to adopt a new way of working; change control governs baseline modifications
They are the same discipline with different names
Change management applies only to adaptive projects
Answer: b. Change management is the people-side discipline of building adoption of a new process or tool. Change control is the governance process for evaluating and approving modifications to scope, schedule, cost, and quality baselines. Reversing the two definitions is one of the most common exam traps.
2. A homeowner asks GCHS to add a second bathroom grab-bar package that was not in the approved scope. What should the project manager do?
Add the work immediately since it supports accessibility
Add it to the lessons learned register
Treat it as a change management issue and hold a readiness assessment with the affected crews
Submit a change request and analyze the impact through the change control process
Answer: d. A request to modify the deliverable affects the scope baseline, so it goes through change control: change request, impact analysis, and a decision by the appropriate authority. Change management techniques such as readiness assessments address people adopting a new way of working, not scope modifications.
3. Six weeks after a new digital inspection app is deployed, only 20% of GCHS field crews are using it and the rest still submit paper forms. This is primarily a:
Change management failure requiring diagnosis of the adoption barrier
Quality control failure requiring re-inspection of the paper forms already submitted
Risk that should be escalated to the portfolio level
Change control failure requiring a change request
Answer: a. Low usage and reversion to old habits are classic change management symptoms: the deliverable exists but the behavior change did not take. The correct response is to diagnose which adoption barrier is blocking (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, or reinforcement) and act on that specific cause.
Answer: d. ADKAR runs Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement, in that order. Placing Knowledge before Desire is the tempting error, but teaching someone how to do something they are not yet willing to do produces a trained person who still will not change.
5. GCHS crews say they were never told why the new safety documentation process was introduced. Which ADKAR stage has failed?
Ability
Reinforcement
Awareness
Desire
Answer: c. Awareness is the need to understand why the change is happening and the risk of not changing. Training or incentives cannot substitute for that explanation: addressing a knowledge or desire gap when the real failure is awareness leaves people compliant but unconvinced.
6. An experienced crew lead attended training, passed the assessment, and understands the new estimating tool, but on live jobs he still cannot complete an estimate without help. Which ADKAR stage is the gap?
Ability
Reinforcement
Awareness
Knowledge
Answer: a. Knowledge is knowing how; Ability is being able to perform in the real environment, which requires practice, coaching, and at-the-elbow support. Sending him to training again addresses a gap he does not have and is the classic wrong answer to this scenario.
7. Before deploying a new digital inspection app, GCHS measures staff awareness, capacity, sponsorship strength, and how many other changes staff are already absorbing. This is a:
Risk breakdown structure review
Change readiness assessment
Quality audit
Stakeholder register update
Answer: b. A change readiness assessment is done before deployment to measure awareness, capacity, sponsorship, culture, and change saturation, and its output shapes the change plan. It is a change-management diagnostic, not a quality or risk artifact.
8. According to Prosci's long-running research, which factor is the top contributor to change success?
A generous training budget
A large project team
A detailed communication plan
Visible, active sponsorship from top leadership
Answer: d. Employees need to hear the reason for the change from the top leader, repeatedly, and the project manager cannot substitute for that voice. A communication plan or training budget supports adoption but is not the strongest predictor on its own.
9. GCHS embeds a respected senior carpenter in each crew to answer questions about a new estimating tool and model its use. This person is acting as a:
Quality auditor
Risk owner
Configuration manager
Change agent (champion)
Answer: d. A change agent or champion is a respected peer embedded in the group who answers questions locally and models the new behavior. A risk owner and configuration manager are unrelated roles from other knowledge areas.
10. A team member openly disagrees with a new process during rollout, citing a technical flaw nobody has addressed. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Engage the person one-on-one to understand and address the root cause
Mandate compliance immediately, since the rollout date is already fixed with the funder
Escalate the objection to the sponsor immediately
Document it as a lesson learned and move on
Answer: a. PMI expects the PM to engage the resistant person directly and find the root cause first, since resistance is often rational and may reveal a real flaw in the plan. Mandating compliance or escalating past that conversation ignores information the objection is offering for free.
11. A change sponsor declares victory and disbands the improvement effort after the first successful pilot house. Which Kotter step was violated?
Step 1, create a sense of urgency
Step 7, sustain acceleration
Step 2, build a guiding coalition
Step 4, enlist a volunteer army
Answer: b. Step 7 warns against declaring victory too early; short-term wins should build momentum toward full adoption, not end the effort. Stopping after one pilot house risks the change never reaching step 8, where it becomes anchored in the culture.
12. A GCHS Portal feature is released to users in small increments rather than all at once. From an organizational change perspective, this incremental delivery is best understood as:
A quality control inspection method applied to each release before handover
A change control technique
A change management strategy that lets users absorb smaller changes
A risk mitigation response
Answer: c. Incremental delivery is itself a change-management strategy: small releases mean smaller behavior shifts each time, and every release provides feedback that improves the next one. It is not a baseline governance process, which is what change control covers.
13. Six months after go-live, some staff have quietly reverted to paper forms because the old system was never retired. Which ADKAR-related action was missing?
Awareness communication
Additional classroom training
Reinforcement, such as retiring the old system so reverting is impossible
A stakeholder register update
Answer: c. Reinforcement includes recognition, metrics, audits, and retiring the old system, and without it organizations regress to old habits. More training does not address a reinforcement gap, since these staff already know how to use the new system.
14. Who typically measures whether a project's benefits were actually realized?
The change control board, as part of its regular review meetings
The risk owner
Operations, usually after handover, using the benefits realization plan
The project manager, during project closeout only, before the team is released
Answer: c. Benefits are usually measured after handover by operations, not the project team, and tracked in the benefits realization plan since realization often takes longer than the project itself. The change control board and risk owner have no role in measuring realized benefit.
Glossary
Change management
The people-side discipline of building awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement so a new way of working is adopted and sustained.
Change control
The governance process, including the change control board, for evaluating and approving modifications to project baselines.
ADKAR
A sequential individual change model: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement.
Guiding coalition
A credible group assembled with enough authority and influence to lead an organizational change (Kotter step 2).
Satir change model
A model describing the expected dip in performance (chaos) after a foreign element arrives, before performance rises to a new status quo.
Change readiness assessment
A pre-deployment measurement of awareness, capacity, sponsorship, culture, and change saturation that shapes the change plan.
Change agent (champion)
A respected peer embedded in a team who models the new behavior and answers questions locally.
Benefits realization plan
The document tracking whether a project's intended benefits were actually achieved, usually measured after handover.