[Sucess Story] How UVA Change Management Turned Change Fatigue Into Campus Wide Change Excellence

Change was not rare at the University of Virginia. It was everywhere.

New systems. New processes. New governance models. New data platforms. New ways of working across academic, medical, research, finance, IT and facilities teams. Each project had a reason to exist, yet the combined effect was draining. People were being asked to adapt again and again, often without a shared explanation of why the change mattered or how it would affect their work.

The problem was not a lack of effort. UVA had strong project management. It had capable teams. It had leaders who cared about improving the institution. What it did not have was a consistent, campus-wide way to help people move through change.

That distinction changed everything.

UVA’s Organizational Excellence team recognised that the university did not simply need more projects completed on time. It needed change capability. It needed a common language, trained practitioners, active sponsors and a way to make adoption part of every major initiative.

The result was a shift from change fatigue to change excellence, supported by Prosci methods and a deliberate effort to build capability across the institution.

Change at UVA began across a complex campus, not inside a single department.

UVA faced too many changes moving in different directions

Large universities are not single, simple organisations. They are networks of schools, departments, laboratories, clinics, administrative teams, research units and service groups. Each area has its own priorities. Each area also has its own pace.

At UVA, that meant change was happening in many places at once. One team might be introducing a new system. Another might be redesigning a process. A third might be changing reporting rules or governance structures. Taken one by one, many of these projects made sense. Seen together, they created a heavy load for faculty, staff and leaders.

The symptoms were familiar:

• Projects overlapped

• Resistance increased

• Faculty and staff felt worn down

• Leaders struggled to see the full picture

• Expected returns were harder to reach

  
  

This is where change fatigue becomes dangerous. People do not always resist because they dislike improvement. Often, they resist because too much is happening without enough clarity, support or sequencing.

A project team may believe it has communicated well because it sent updates and held briefings. The people affected may still feel confused. They may not know what will change in their daily work. They may not see why the timing matters. They may not trust that the new way will be better.

UVA saw this gap clearly. The university was not failing because it lacked project discipline. It was struggling because too many projects treated the human side of change as something to handle late, lightly or differently each time.

That insight became the turning point.

The real issue was capability, not project volume

UVA’s Organizational Excellence team made a frank observation: the university did not have one consistent method for change. Different projects used different approaches. Some teams gave careful thought to adoption. Others focused mainly on technical delivery.

That inconsistency created a hidden cost.

When every project uses its own language, people affected by change have to learn not only the new system or process, but also the project’s way of explaining it. Sponsors receive uneven guidance. Managers are asked to support change without a clear role. Project teams make different assumptions about readiness, resistance and training.

UVA needed something more durable than a one-off fix. It needed a repeatable way to answer basic questions:

• Who is affected by this change?

• What will they need to do differently?

• Why would they support or resist it?

• Which leaders must actively sponsor it?

• How will adoption be measured?

• How will the project team respond when people are not ready?

  
  

That thinking led UVA towards Prosci and its approach to change management, including the ADKAR model. ADKAR looks at change through five outcomes at the individual level: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.

For a university, that matters because institutional change is never only institutional. It reaches individual people. A faculty member changes how they report activity. A member of clinical staff adjusts to a new workflow. A finance employee learns a different process. An IT team changes how it supports users.

If those people do not adopt the change, the project may go live but still fall short.

A conference moment gave UVA Change Management a practical path

The next step came through the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education, known as NCCI. UVA leaders heard Prosci’s approach presented in a higher education context. That detail mattered.

Many change management methods sound sensible in theory. Fewer feel usable inside a university environment, where shared governance, academic culture, administrative complexity and patient care can all intersect.

UVA saw three things that made the approach relevant:

• A method that could work in higher education

• A framework that connected project management with change management

• A community of practitioners already applying Prosci in other universities

  
  

The response was direct. This was the type of structure UVA needed.

Yet the university did not treat Prosci as a tool to attach to one troubled project. It made a larger choice. It would build people capability first, then embed that capability into the way projects were selected, planned and delivered.

That decision explains much of the success that followed.

A shared change method helped different parts of the university speak the same language.

UVA built a network of 54 change practitioners

UVA started with people. Fifty-four employees completed Prosci certification. They came from 24 areas across the institution, including academic units, medical operations, IT, finance, facilities and research.

That spread was essential. Change capability cannot sit in one central team and expect to influence a whole university by request alone. It needs local credibility. It needs people who understand the realities of a school, clinic, lab or administrative unit.

By training practitioners across many parts of the university, UVA created its first broad community of change specialists. These were not outside advisers arriving with a generic playbook. They were UVA employees who could connect the method to real work on campus.

The value of that network showed up in several ways.

It created a common language. Teams could talk about sponsorship, resistance, readiness and adoption in the same terms.

It reduced reinvention. Each project no longer had to design its own change approach from scratch.

It built trust across departments. Practitioners could learn from each other’s projects and adapt what worked.

It made change visible earlier. Human risks could be identified before go-live, rather than after frustration had already spread.

This is a key lesson from UVA’s story. Change excellence does not begin with a template. It begins when enough people across the organisation understand how change really happens.

Change management became part of the project portfolio

Training practitioners was only one part of the work. UVA also changed how projects were managed.

The Organizational Excellence team embedded change management into portfolio management. Projects were expected to include both a project management plan and a change management plan. That moved change management from a helpful extra to a core condition for success.

This matters because many organisations treat change management as a late-stage communication task. Once the technology is built or the process is designed, someone is asked to send messages, schedule training and manage complaints.

UVA took a different route. It brought the people side of change into planning from the start.

That meant project teams had to think earlier about:

• Stakeholder groups

• Sponsor roles

• Readiness

• Resistance

• Communication channels

• Training needs

• Adoption measures

• Reinforcement after launch

  
  

This approach also gave leaders a clearer view of risk. A project might be on schedule technically, yet still be in trouble if users did not understand it, support it or feel able to use it. By adding change criteria to the portfolio view, UVA could look beyond delivery milestones and ask whether the project was likely to produce the planned result.

That is where project ROI improves. The return does not come from launch alone. It comes when people use the new system, follow the new process or adopt the new behaviour at enough scale to create value.

Monthly communities kept the method alive

UVA also built a monthly change community. Practitioners gathered to share cases, discuss resistance, exchange tools and strengthen a shared way of working.

This step may sound modest, but it is one of the reasons capability lasts.

A certification can start a movement. It cannot maintain one by itself. People need practice, feedback and examples. They need a place to ask what to do when a sponsor is passive, when users are sceptical or when two major changes collide in the same department.

The monthly community gave UVA a way to keep learning active. It also helped prevent change management from becoming a set of isolated specialists. The practitioners became a connected network.

Over time, that kind of community changes culture. The language spreads. Project teams begin asking for change support earlier. Leaders start expecting adoption measures. Managers become more aware of their role in helping people through transitions.

At that point, change management is no longer a side activity. It becomes part of how the institution works.

Practitioners used shared tools to connect local change work across the wider university.

Real projects showed how the approach worked

UVA’s change capability became visible through projects in different parts of the institution. The value was not abstract. Teams used the method to diagnose resistance, strengthen sponsorship and redesign adoption plans.

The School of Medicine used ADKAR during a major system rollout

In the School of Medicine, project manager Kim Holman used ADKAR during the VMED system implementation. The model helped the team identify where people were struggling.

Resistance can look like one problem from the outside. ADKAR breaks it into more useful questions. Do people lack awareness of why the change is needed? Do they understand it but lack desire to support it? Do they need knowledge, practice or reinforcement?

That distinction helps the project team respond with precision. A person who lacks awareness does not need more technical training. A person who lacks ability needs practice and support, not another explanation of strategy.

Holman also used Prosci’s sponsor assessment to build stronger leadership support. That was a critical move. In major change, sponsors cannot only approve resources or appear at launch. They must communicate why the change matters, stay visible and support the project through resistance.

Her reflection captured the shift well. After many years in IT, Prosci helped her see that people are central to project success.

The Medical Center brought sponsorship in from day one

At UVA Medical Center, Don Demarco used ADKAR across several types of work, including IT space changes, outpatient process standardisation and communication system integration.

The notable difference was timing. In the past, sponsors were often engaged late in a project. With Prosci, the team began involving them from the first day.

That change reduces risk. A late sponsor can approve a message. An early sponsor can shape commitment. They can help explain the reason for change, connect it to operational needs and address concerns before they harden into resistance.

In a medical environment, that is especially important. Changes affect workflows, communication patterns and staff capacity. If adoption is weak, the costs can show up quickly in confusion, rework or inconsistent practice.

The Academic Division changed its view of system success

In the Faculty Annual Reporting project, the Academic Division learned another lesson: installing a system is often easier than getting people to use it well.

That insight applies far beyond one university. Technical implementation can feel concrete. There are requirements, tests, configurations and launch dates. Adoption is more human. It needs trust, clarity, repetition and reinforcement.

Using ADKAR helped the team rethink its approach. Instead of assuming the system itself would drive success, the team looked more carefully at what faculty and staff needed to understand, accept and do.

That shift is the heart of change capability. It stops treating adoption as an afterthought and makes it part of project design.

UVA’s results showed the value of institutional capability

The numbers in UVA’s story are significant.

The university reported 275 improvement and cost-saving initiatives, with annual savings of US$21.9 million and four-year cumulative savings of US$82.1 million.

UVA’s story shows that the real return came from building capability, not from rescuing one project at a time.

The change also altered day-to-day practice. Project managers began to include change plans as a normal part of project work. Leaders asked for change indicators. Teams across campus used shared language to talk about adoption, resistance and sponsorship.

That is a different level of maturity.

A project can succeed once because a strong team works hard. An institution becomes stronger when many teams can repeat good practice across different types of change. UVA moved towards that second state.

Prosci’s approach helped the university:

• Identify resistance earlier

• Adjust plans before problems escalated

• Connect sponsors to the work sooner

• Give project teams a shared structure

• Improve consistency across departments

  
  

UVA’s own view was that Prosci changed the way people looked at projects. That is a powerful statement. It means the method did more than add tasks. It changed what counted as success.

A project was no longer only a technical delivery. It became a managed shift in how people work.

UVA’s change work became part of how the institution thought about lasting improvement.

The lessons apply beyond higher education

UVA’s context is a university, but the lessons reach any complex organisation with many initiatives moving at once.

The first lesson is to name change fatigue honestly. If people are tired, more communication alone will not fix it. Leaders need to understand the total volume of change, where it overlaps and how it affects daily work.

The second lesson is to build capability before crisis. UVA did not wait for one failing project to justify change management. It trained a broad network and gave people a common method.

The third lesson is to connect project management and change management. A project plan can show what will be delivered. A change plan shows how people will adopt it. Both are needed.

The fourth lesson is to take sponsorship seriously. Sponsors shape belief, priority and commitment. When they engage late, the project loses one of its strongest sources of influence.

The final lesson is to treat adoption as the measure that matters. Go-live is a milestone. Real success arrives when people use the new way of working and keep using it.

UVA’s journey shows what happens when an institution stops treating change as a series of separate disruptions. It becomes a shared capability.

The university did not eliminate complexity. It did not stop changing. Instead, it became better at helping people move through change with clarity, support and purpose.

That is the real meaning of campus wide change excellence. It is not a slogan. It is the discipline of making change something an institution can do well, again and again.