[Sucess Story] The Change Management Strategy That Got Texas A&M 70% Ready for Workday

The biggest fear when launching a large-scale system isn't a button that fails, but people who aren't ready. When Texas A&M University implemented Workday, it faced this classic high-risk scenario: processes would change, roles would change, daily work would change, and the impact would span the entire university system.

Texas A&M University, often called TAMU, is a massive higher education institution with over 70,000 students and thousands of faculty and staff supporting teaching, research, and administration. When a new administrative and HR system is introduced into such an organization, the change cannot be accomplished through an IT project plan alone.

TAMU's key decision was to manage "adoption" as a core outcome from the very beginning, long before the system went live. By partnering with Prosci, TAMU established a consistent change management methodology that allowed key stakeholders to get involved early, understand the changes, receive training, and know what roles they would play in the transformation.

The most striking result: 70% of key stakeholders had completed their readiness activities four months before the Workday go-live. This figure signifies more than just extensive communication; it shows that the entire university was beginning to see change as a capability that could be designed, managed, and accumulated.

Large-scale campus change begins with a clear view of the scope of impact.

TAMU's Change Management Approach to a University-Wide Transformation

The implementation of Workday was not just about replacing an old system with a new one. For TAMU, it was a transformation involving core administrative capabilities.

The scope of impact included:

• Recruiting processes

• Compensation and position information

• Performance management

• Employee data

• Manager approvals

• HR service and response methods

In a corporate environment, this type of system implementation is already complex. In a large university, the difficulty is even greater. Higher education institutions often have multiple colleges, campuses, research units, administrative departments, and support teams. Different units have different work rhythms and varying levels of reliance on central systems.

One college might be most concerned about whether the recruiting process can align with the academic calendar. A research unit might focus on personnel data related to hiring and funding. An administrative team needs to ensure there are no gaps in approvals, permissions, data quality, and compliance requirements.

This meant TAMU couldn't just ask one question: Will the system go live on time?

The more critical questions were:

• On go-live day, will users know why things are changing, what they need to do, and how to get help when they encounter problems?

If the answer was no, even the most perfect technical plan would meet resistance. People might delay using the new processes, stick to old habits, or dump all their problems back on the project team. These reactions don't always stem from resistance; sometimes, they are simply due to a lack of clear direction and support.

TAMU recognized this risk early on and, therefore, didn't treat change management as an afterthought to be tacked on at the end of the project. Instead, it was designed in from the very beginning.

How Prosci Placed Change Management at the Project's Core

The focus of TAMU's collaboration with Prosci wasn't just to add a few more information sessions or send more reminder emails before go-live. The real shift was establishing a common methodology that different teams across departments could use to discuss change in the same language.

Prosci's methodology emphasizes starting with people. This was crucial for TAMU because a common blind spot in large system implementations is that the project team is intimately familiar with the system design, while end-users only feel that their way of working has suddenly changed.

A bridge was needed.

TAMU needed to know:

• Which departments would be most affected?

• Which roles needed to be involved the earliest?

• Which process changes were most likely to cause confusion?

• Which managers needed more explicit support?

• Which messages needed to be delivered repeatedly, in layers, and at different times?

Prosci helped TAMU turn these questions into concrete tasks, moving beyond vague requirements like "we need to communicate well." The project began tracking not only system configuration, testing, and data migration but also stakeholder readiness, role-based engagement, training completion rates, and adoption risks.

This made change management a part of project governance.

In other words, TAMU didn't wait for people to complain before acting; it proactively identified potential sources of resistance long before the go-live date.

A clear stakeholder map makes complex change manageable.

Early Engagement: A Core Principle of TAMU's Change Management

One of the most noteworthy aspects of TAMU's change story is how early stakeholders were engaged. For large projects, this often determines whether subsequent resistance increases or decreases.

Many organizations only begin external communication when the system is nearly complete. This approach seems efficient because it avoids repeated changes to messaging. However, the cost is high. When users first hear about the change, the project is already in its final stages, and they are likely to feel that they are merely being informed, not included.

TAMU took a different approach. With Prosci's support, the team built a clear stakeholder map and launched engagement activities early in the project.

The purpose of these activities was not just to make people "aware of a new system." More importantly, it was to help different roles gradually understand:

• Why the university needed this new system.

• Which processes would change.

• When the changes would happen.

• What preparations individuals and teams needed to make.

• Where they could ask questions.

This early engagement led to a key result: 70% of key stakeholders had completed readiness activities four months before go-live.

This metric is significant because it shows that preparation was not a last-minute rush. Long before the system went live, many key groups had already gone through the process of understanding, participating, learning, and preparing. The project team also gained early insight into which areas still had concerns and which units needed extra support.

In a large-scale higher education transformation, this lead time is critical. The university's work cycle is influenced by semesters, hiring seasons, research projects, and administrative deadlines. If it's discovered that certain units are unprepared just before go-live, the room for remediation is very limited.

TAMU's approach distributed the pressure of go-live day across the entire change journey.

Using the ADKAR Model in Change Management to Diagnose Resistance

TAMU used Prosci's ADKAR Model to help the team understand the process of individual change adoption. This model breaks change down into five elements:

Element	Core Question	Observable Signals at TAMU
Awareness	Why is the change needed?	Do users understand the reasons for the Workday implementation?
Desire	Am I willing to participate?	Are managers and employees willing to invest in readiness activities?
Knowledge	Do I know how to do it?	Have relevant roles completed training and understood the new processes?
Ability	Can I actually do it?	Can users complete necessary tasks in real-world scenarios?
Reinforcement	Will the change be sustained?	Is there support, feedback, and correction mechanisms post-launch?

The value of ADKAR is that it prevents the project team from labeling all issues as "resistance." In reality, resistance comes in many forms.

• Some people resist because they don't know why the change is happening.

• Some hesitate because they don't see what's in it for them.

• Some make mistakes because they lack sufficient knowledge.

• Some know the process but can't execute it because the context is too complex (ability).

• Some adopt it initially but revert to old ways because of a lack of reinforcement.

Without differentiating these, solutions are often misapplied. For example, someone lacking Awareness needs a clear rationale, not more operational training. Someone lacking Ability needs practice and support, not just another announcement to read.

Through ADKAR, TAMU broke down the vague feeling of "people aren't ready" into discussable, trackable states. This allowed the project team to decide more accurately what to do next.

Role-based support lets everyone know what they need to do.

Role-Based Support: A Pillar of Successful Organizational Change

Another common problem in large transformations is unclear responsibility. Everyone knows "this is an important project," but no one is clear on the role they should play in the change.

TAMU's approach was to design separate responsibilities for different groups. Prosci helped the team clarify how leaders, managers, the project team, and frontline employees could work together to drive adoption.

The Role of Leaders in Driving Change

In a change, leaders cannot just show up at the kickoff meeting. For a large organization like TAMU, a leader's key task is to make all units understand that the Workday implementation is not an isolated IT project but a transformation related to the university's administrative capabilities.

They also need to help remove barriers. When different units have conflicting priorities or when process adjustments require cross-departmental coordination, it's difficult for the project team to push forward alone. Leadership support enables faster decision-making and more consistent messaging.

Equipping Managers to Support Adoption

On the front lines of change, managers are often the most critical players. When employees encounter problems, they typically turn to their direct supervisors first, not the project office.

TAMU included managers in the change support network, enabling them not only to receive information but also to help their teams understand the change, arrange for learning, and report concerns. This brought change management closer to daily work instead of keeping it at the level of central communications.

The Project Team's Dual Focus: Technology and People

A Workday implementation requires a massive amount of technical work, including process design, data preparation, testing, and go-live planning. But TAMU's case shows that the project team must also incorporate people adoption into their plan.

This includes translating process changes into user-understandable scenarios, ensuring training content is relevant to specific roles, and observing which units might need earlier intervention.

Empowering Frontline Employees in the Transformation

Frontline employees are not passive recipients of change. They are the ones who know best where daily processes can get stuck and are best able to point out gaps between the new system and actual work.

By giving frontline employees the opportunity to understand and prepare early, TAMU ensured their feedback could be seen before go-live. This is far more manageable than being inundated with support tickets after launch.

The True Meaning of 70% Advance Readiness

"70% of stakeholders completed readiness activities in advance" is not just a pretty number. It means the organization had already mitigated several common risks before go-live.

1. Resistance Surfaced Earlier. Early engagement allowed the project team to address concerns before they escalated, rather than facing a wave of dissatisfaction on go-live day.

2. Post-Launch Chaos Was More Controllable. When most key stakeholders are already prepared, support needs are more predictable. The project team can focus resources on the groups that truly need help.

3. Adoption Was Faster. After the system went live, users didn't need to understand the change from scratch. They already knew the direction, expectations, and basic operations, allowing them to start using the system more quickly.

4. Managers Were Better Equipped to Lead Their Teams. With clear roles in the change, managers could help their employees digest the changes instead of redirecting all problems back to the central project team.

Together, these outcomes ensured that the Workday go-live was not just a technical switch but a well-planned organizational transition.

Change Management Becomes a Sustainable Organizational Capability for TAMU

The most valuable part of TAMU's story is not just the Workday project itself, but the fact that the university built a change management capability it can use in the future.

A common struggle in large organizations is starting from scratch with every project. A new system means a new communication method. A new team means rediscovering how to handle resistance. This creates significant hidden costs for the organization.

By using the Prosci framework, TAMU turned change management into a repeatable framework. This allows future large-scale projects to follow a similar line of thinking:

• First, define the affected groups.

• Initiate stakeholder engagement early.

• Use ADKAR to assess readiness.

• Design support for different roles.

• Incorporate adoption metrics into project management.

Culture also begins to shift slowly. When leaders start proactively asking for a change plan, project teams will naturally include ADKAR analysis in their early planning. When employees experience structured change support across multiple projects, their reaction to new initiatives will shift from defensive to expectant.

This cannot be achieved through short-term campaigns. It comes from the accumulation of experience, one project at a time.

Successful change ultimately comes down to daily use and sustained adoption by people.

Four Change Management Lessons from the Texas A&M Case Study

Although TAMU's case took place in a higher education setting, it offers valuable lessons for any large organization, especially those implementing ERP, HR, finance systems, or cross-departmental process platforms.

1. Starting Early Is More Important Than Communicating More.Change communication isn't about volume; it's about delivering the right message at the right time. TAMU's approach reminds us that early engagement can turn spectators into participants. If you wait until the system is almost finished to start explaining, it's hard for users to feel invested. The earlier you help key groups understand the intent, see the impact, and ask questions, the smoother the rollout will be.

2. Adoption Must Be Treated as a Project Outcome.Many projects only track technical milestones: design complete, testing complete, data migration complete. These are important, but not enough. TAMU's experience shows that adoption also needs to be managed. Readiness activity completion rates, key role engagement levels, training status, and sources of resistance are all early indicators of whether a transformation will succeed.

3. Diagnose Resistance, Don't Just Label It.When people ask questions or delay compliance, it's easy for a project team to label it as "resistance." ADKAR provides a more nuanced method to help the team ask the real questions. Is it a lack of understanding of the why? A lack of desire to engage? A lack of knowledge on how to do it? Knowing how but lacking the ability? Or a lack of follow-up reinforcement? Different answers require different solutions.

4. Every Role Needs to Know Its Responsibility.Change cannot be driven by the project team alone. Leaders, managers, project members, and frontline employees all need clear roles. The key to TAMU getting 70% of its stakeholders ready in advance was that it broke down responsibilities instead of relying on "please support us" as its main strategy.

The Texas A&M case illustrates one thing clearly: the success or failure of a large-scale transformation often begins to take shape long before go-live. A ready system is only part of the success. Whether the people are ready is what determines if the new processes can truly become part of daily work.

Through early engagement, ADKAR diagnostics, role-based support, and a consistent methodology, TAMU elevated change management from a project add-on to an organizational capability. This is the real reason it was able to get 70% of its key stakeholders ready four months before its Workday launch.

For any organization currently driving a large-scale transformation, this story offers a clear reminder: Don't wait until go-live day to start demanding adoption. True adoption must be built long before the change happens.