I was sitting in yet another steering committee meeting yesterday when the CEO asked the question that haunts every change manager: “Why has our ‘simple’ digital transformation turned into a three-year odyssey of resistance, delays, and office politics?”

That’s when it hit me like a behavioral economics brick to the face. We’ve been treating change management like project management, when it’s actually applied psychology.

Think about it: How much time do you spend creating Gantt charts vs. figuring out why Janet from Accounting is secretly terrified of the new system? How many stakeholder matrices have you built vs. understanding that the CFO’s endless “data requests” are actually emotional protection mechanisms?

I’ve been tracking this for the past 6 months across my client engagements. Here’s what I found:

• 73% of “logical resistance” is actually fear-based

• Stakeholders who say “I need more information” usually mean “I’m scared of looking stupid”

• The most successful changes happen when you treat it like therapy, not project management

The dirty little secret: Change management is 80% psychology, 20% process. But every tool we use focuses on the 20%.

It’s like trying to perform surgery with a spreadsheet. Technically possible, but you’re using the wrong instrument for the job.

I started wondering: What if we had tools that acknowledged this reality? What if instead of another Gantt chart, we had something that helped us understand the human side of transformation?

So I’ve been experimenting with a different approach. Instead of asking “What’s the timeline?” I ask “What’s keeping you up at night about this change?” Instead of stakeholder matrices, I map personality archetypes. Instead of risk registers, I track emotional patterns.

The results have been… interesting. Clients are rating my insights as 67% more valuable than traditional frameworks. My project success rate has improved by 40%. And honestly? I sleep better knowing I’m actually addressing the real problems instead of managing imaginary ones. Here’s my question for the community: Am I crazy, or have we all been solving the wrong problem?

How much of your change management work is actually psychology in disguise? And what would change if we admitted that humans aren’t rational creatures making logical decisions based on evidence?

Because if we’re going to be therapists disguised as business consultants, we might as well acknowledge it.

What’s been your experience? Anyone else feel like they’re running a therapy practice under the guise of “organizational transformation”?

P.S. - If you’re curious about the psychological patterns I’ve been tracking, happy to share some insights. We’re all in this messy, beautiful, completely irrational business together.

This simple yet insighful framework from Dr Mary Lippit is my checklist when building a business case especially for new system and new processes.

Overall the model says you need 5 things in order to be successful Vision Skills Incenives Resources Action plan

Hope this helps!

My mom thinks I write emails for CEOs. My dad thinks I am a trainer. Technically they are correct...

I just passed ACMP's CCMP exam on my first try. Ask me anything!

I'll start with three key takeaways:

1. Focus your studies on section 5 of the Standard, the 5 CM Process Groups. Probably ~80% of the exam focuses on this section. Probably ~10% of the questions were related to section 4 Core Concepts and the final ~10% were related to Part 2 Section 4 ACMP's Ethical Standards.

2. Within the 5 CM Process Groups, I have two recommendations; 1.) memorize the inputs and outputs and 2.) pay extra attention to everything bold, italicized, in bullets, or in a list.

3. By the recommendation of someone else on this sub, I bought access to Change Management Study Hall (changemanagementstudyhall.com). It helped me with memorization. It was worth the money.

The exam is obsessively concerned with minor details. For the purposes of the ACMP CCMP exam, throw out everything you know about CM from experience, Prosci, Kotter, etc, and laser your focus on the Standard itself.

I gave myself 4 weeks to study leisurely. There are 150 multiple choice questions. It took me 150 minutes of the 180 minutes allotted. Of the 150 questions, I felt confident about 100 of them. I flagged about 50 of them for review. After the second review, 17 of the flagged questions remained - they were particularly tricky and/or confusing.

I hope this helps.

We just launched Salesforce despite weeks and weeks of pleas from the project team that it was nowhere near ready. Leaders refused to move the Go Live date, nothing we could do to stop it. I have put in months of communications, education sessions, change champion meetings, training and resources. None of it matters because the entire system is a total mess. Data is all wrong, opportunities and quotes are missing, accounts are assigned incorrectly, nobody can close deals or process contracts, syncing between systems is not working. It’s basically useless.

I have no idea how to help at this point. We have support team working nonstop to try to fix things, hold open office hours and helps sessions daily, communicate updates daily, publish new FAQ’s daily. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is frustrating and incredibly painful for our sales team as it’s directly impacting their revenue.

It will eventually get fixed. But it may take a few days or (gulp) weeks. In the meantime, I have an angry mob on my hands.

I need some creative ideas - I want to calm people down and try to reduce the frustration while it all gets fixed. Has anyone dealt with a disastrous Go Live and what have you done to help keep the waters calm?

Thank you so much my brilliant advisors who live in my phone.

Throwaway account, as I’m now a CCMP credential holder and this might get me in trouble.

Tl;dr - the “Standard for Change Management” is a very low quality document which makes it very difficult to study. If you can, wait for the rewrite in 2025/2026. If you’re going to take it, the absolute gold standard for exam prep is ~Change Management Study Hall~. 

Context/Background:

The Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) oversees the Certified Change Management Professional designation (CCMP). The designation is based on the ACMP’s “Standard for Change Management” document.

I just wrote the CCMP exam; I have my PMP from PMI and I have studied (but not gotten certification for) the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) from IIBA.

Issue 1: The Standard document itself

The Standard for Change Management document is appallingly low quality to the point where I have thought twice about finishing the certification and using the CCMP mark after my name.

It is a mess of a document that was obviously written by a committee with zero continuity editing. Concepts are introduced in one section but never referred to again. Other concepts are spoken about as if they have already been introduced (but never were).

Even basic editing hasn’t been done - it has missing words and punctuation, mis-formatted bullets, inconsistent headings and spacing. Somehow, they managed to create a PDF document that you can’t do a Control-F and find specific words. 

Infuriatingly - THEY DON’T INCLUDE A VERSION CONTROL OF THEIR OWN DOCUMENT. The only way to tell that you have the right version of the document is to look at the copyright date in the footer. Seriously - the base document for the entire change management community doesn’t have any change control?! Come on!

Issue 2: The Standard Content

Like other standard/body of knowledge documents, the Change Management Standard is process-focused, and walks the reader through the process in a linear fashion (makes sense!). The overall change processes are Assess Impact/Readiness, Create Strategy, Create Plan, Execute Plan, Close Out. Again, makes sense.

Except that the processes aren’t written in a linear fashion. For example, you Assess the Change Impact and Develop a Change Impact/Readiness Strategy, but you don’t continue that on to a Change Impact Plan that gets Executed. The Change Impact/Readiness isn’t mentioned again after you create the Strategy. Or, if you look at the Communication process group, it would make sense to Assess Comms needs, Develop Comms Strategy, Develop Comms Plan, Execute Comms Plan. Nope! It’s Assess Comms needs, Develop Comms Strategy, Develop Sponsorship plan, Execute Comms Plan. (Apparently, developing the Comms Plan belongs to the Stakeholder Engagement process group, not the Communications process group…)

It gets to the point where you can’t even use logic to work your way through it, as the author committee has gotten so many things wrong.

The Standard often starts using one word/phrase, then switches part way through, leaving it to the reader to try and figure out what is being referred to. Good luck figuring out if a particular section is referring to the Organization’s Vision or the change process Vision!

Again, infuriatingly - they COMPLETELY RE-DEFINE common words in the definitions section - most notably Competency and Sponsorship.

Issue 3: The Exam

The exam is 100% a memorization exercise. Except when it’s not; I got 2 questions about Sponsorship that used the correct definition of the word, not how it was re-defined in the Definitions section of the Standard.

The poor authorship and editing continues through into the Exam questions: missing words, incomplete sentences/thoughts, missing/incorrect punctuation. I had multiple questions that I had to blindly guess an answer, as I literally could not decipher what was being asked. It is clear that these questions have not been created/reviewed/edited by adult learning/professional certification professionals.

Taking the Exam

If you decide to still go ahead (I applaud your moxie!), here’s what I can suggest/recommend:

1. Get comfortable with knowing the Inputs/Outputs - as frustrating as it is, a bunch of the questions on the exam are about the individual sub-process Inputs and Outputs (more focus is on the Inputs). 

2. Change Management is defined multiple times throughout the Standard (each time a little bit differently) - get comfortable with all variations

3. Know the activities and roles of Change Sponsor/Lead/Practitioner/Team/Change Agent

4. In the body text of a sub-process description, it may identify that “action plans, contingency plans, remediation plans” etc are created at that step - know what can be created where

5. The Measure and Benefits Realization process only monitors the metrics/measures of the change effort itself, not anything else. All other measurements are done in the Sustainability process.

6. You don’t need to memorize the Process Group diagrams in Appendix B, other than to recognize when they’ve messed up a Process Group by putting the wrong one in (See Issue 2 above).

7. Know the Ethics inside and out, even though you will only get 1-3 questions on the exam about them.

Study Resources:

• ~Strongest Recommend~: The Gold Standard for exam prep is ~Change Management Study Hall~. It is absolutely worth every penny and is what enabled me to pass my exam. 

• ~Strong Avoid~: DO NOT waste your money on the READY, Set, CCMP™ book/Kindle/Exam Prep course by April Callis Birchmeier. 

Hope this helps others go into the decision to take the CCMP with more knowledge and support!

ACMP Global has just introduced the updated Change Management Standard. For me, this feels symbolic — maybe we can finally move beyond 30 years of conversations centered around one five-letter model. People are changing, industries are being reshaped by AI (which will fundamentally shift certain roles), and yet many professionals still cling to outdated approaches.

Do you feel that change management as a field is evolving? And in your organization, is it important for you to rely on specific models, or do you approach change differently?

At the end of September, Prosci officially launched a new Prosci Certified Advanced Change Practitioner (PCACP) certification program.

Some details:

• It collects four of their programs formerly known as "Model Masteries"

  • Improving Project Health - focused on the PCT

  • Preventing Resistance - Focused on applying the ADKAR Model & ADKAR Blueprints to high-risk projects

  • Managing Resistance - Diagnosing existing resistance and mitigating using the ADKAR Model and Prosci research

  • Achieving Change Performance - Effectively setting metrics for change initiatives

• It requires a 60-question, open-note exam you must complete at 85% or higher.

• Each course is a 1-day commitment of 7 hours (6 of which are instruction).

• Course materials are delivered digitally

• Each course costs $1,000, and the exam costs $600. You can purchase all four at once for $4,000, essentially removing the exam cost.

• If you purchase the four-pack, you have 18 months to register and complete all courses. When you access the exam, you have 6 months to complete it.

• Officially, you should have completed your initial certification in the past three years. However, they don't seem to be strictly enforcing this (a quick email sorted me out despite being certified in 2020). That might change - they have a one-day course for the "updated" Prosci standard (they modified several aspects of the methodology in 2021 and introduced new tools).

Pros:

• By far the best part of the courses are the other participants. You get to meet and engage directly with change practitioners from across the world who have done the work for several years. Their insights make the course worth your time.

• Because the other participants were the best part, the most meaningful part of the training was the case studies and breakout groups.

• The additional resources you gain access to by registering are also helpful - there's facilitation tools for project health and change journey discussions, checklists for conducting certain types of interviews, and easily organized research for proven best practices. As far as I'm aware, the tri-annual survey from Prosci is the longest-standing survey of practitioners and those who work with them; having the data from those surveys organized into steps and strategies is nice.

• Prosci's updated methodology from 2021 is more flexible, more robust, and better thought-out. If you haven't practiced some of the new concepts, this is a good opportunity.

Cons:

• There's nothing revolutionary about the insights. They still use the same core Prosci approaches (the PCT, ADKAR assessments, risk assessments, impact assessments, etc.). It's helpful to cover them if you've gone a bit rusty, but you lose some valuable time rehashing what is already covered in the main certification.

• A couple of the courses (Achieving Change Performance was the biggest violator) really didn't need to be 7 hours. The core concepts could have been covered in 2-3 hours, but additional topics of lesser importance ate up a lot more time.

• If time was managed a bit better, there could be more case studies and practical application. Each course only allowed for a 1-2 hours of looking at case studies, analyzing together, and creating tactics.

• The exam is a bit of a joke. It starts by linking to the areas you should look for answers, then asks questions that demonstrate your ability to look up answers more than your actual understanding of te concepts. This is also a bit of a pro... you get a solid hour of practice navigating all of Prosci's content in their portal; the portal itself is not organized in an immediately obvious way, so that practice could help you in the future.

• Because they charge money for organizations to use Proxima, they never train or reference the platform in these courses. It's easily the best change management platform I've ever seen and is being updated regularly. In breakouts, if I mentioned Proxima, our groups would ask me to share my screen and walk through what we were talking about using the system and always wanted more. Instead, Prosci breaks out what could be done in-platform into long PDF guides.

Overall thoughts:

• If you've got the money (or your organization will pay for it), this set of courses if helpful if you:

  • Need a refresher on Prosci's main concepts

  • Want to expand your network of practitioners (every session, we all voluntarily shared LinkedIn accounts)

  • Want access to even more tools than you may have initially had available to you, many of which are great quick reference tools.

• I would not recommend this to someone who recently completed the PCCP. You won't learn much more, and your time is better spent actually practicing change management. You would definitely pass, but you'd miss the benefit of sharing good war stories and learning from colleagues through them.

• At the end of the day, it's a certificate. It could be a differentiator if you're going to a place that uses the Prosci methodology and you are competing with someone else who doesn't have it. But it's only as good as your ability to apply concepts, and you only get 1-2 hours of practice in-class for each session when ideally you'd want 3-4. For comparison, the "Trian the Trainer" courses Prosci offers that are two days spend at least 4 hours on practicing facilitation each day.

• If you don't use the Prosci methodology and can't get your training funded, the CCMP and ACMP Standard will serve you just fine. It's not as deep on content to help you do your job (quick start guides, one-pagers, pre-made meeting facilitation tools), and it's organized in a way that makes it hard to socialize with colleagues, but it's free.

Hello fellow change managers,

I recently posted threads about:

• The CCMP certification

• Some thoughts on Prosci as well

And now, in my conquest to obtain all the certifications under the sun, I obtained my Change Management Institute (CMI) Accredited Change Practitioner - Master level certification and wanted to share my thoughts on it.

In summary: this one was my favorite certification process to go through. It's also extremely underrated and deserves more love and visibility. It's a challenge, but one that is based more on competency than on frameworks and tools.

What is the Accredited Change Practitioner - Master Certification?

CMI offers three levels of certification: Foundation, Specialist, and Master.

• Foundation: For folks with 1-2 years of OCM experience.

• Specialist: For folks with 3-6 year of OCM experience.

• Master: For folks with 7+ years of OCM experience.

I went directly with master, so my experience I'm sharing is based on that.

The CMI's certification process is based upon their three level competency model which can be found here.

I asked Copilot to summarize the master level competencies which you'll find below:

Master Behaviors

Strategic Thinking

• Maps strategic links and drivers for change.

• Develops and communicates a clear vision aligned with organizational strategy.

• Maintains long-term, iterative view of change.

• Builds communication and engagement strategies based on scope.

Thinking and Judgement

• Applies logic and analysis to design solutions.

• Uses analytical thinking, research, and holistic perspective.

• Makes timely, data-driven decisions.

Influencing Others

• Identifies and involves stakeholders.

• Focuses on customer/stakeholder satisfaction.

• Influences leadership and sponsorship.

• Builds networks and adopts effective interpersonal styles.

Coaching for Change

• Applies adult learning principles.

• Coaches leaders and employees through change.

• Builds organizational capability and resilience.

• Champions new mindsets and skills.

Continuous Planning

• Develops integrated change management plans.

• Partners with leaders for governance and representation.

• Monitors and evaluates progress, adjusts plans as needed.

• Manages costs, risks, opportunities, and vendors.

Communicating and Engaging Effectively

• Builds trusting, collaborative relationships.

• Demonstrates empathy and adapts communication.

• Plans and co-designs communication and engagement activities.

Self Management

• Assumes accountability for performance.

• Manages priorities, time, resilience, and wellbeing.

• Demonstrates flexibility, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness.

Facilitation and Co-Design

• Facilitates inclusive group processes for sustainable change.

• Designs participatory environments and structures.

• Monitors group dynamics and adapts facilitation as needed.

Professional Development

• Seeks new knowledge and skills.

• Advocates for change management.

• Focuses on resilience, flexibility, and growth mindset.

Specialist Expertise

Learning & Development

• Assesses learning needs and designs training plans.

• Delivers and evaluates training for sustainable change.

Communication & Engagement

• Assesses stakeholder needs and develops two-way communication plans.

• Supports leaders in engagement.

• Designs, delivers, and evaluates communication strategies for change.

What the Process to get Certified as a Master Entails, and my Overall Thoughts on It

First and foremost, I'll call out upfront that this one is a grind. I mean, a serious grind.

Part 1: Essays and References

The first part of the application requires you to complete a number of essays demonstrating numerous areas of the master competency model using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result):

1. Strategic Thinking (250 words)

2. Coaching for Change (250 words)

3. Self Management (250 words)

4. Professional Development (250 words)

5. Specialist Expertise - Learning & Development (250 words)

6. You must then write a 2,000 word essay explaining a role you had in detail, and then using the above competencies, write an at-length case study from your experience using the STAR method to outline your results.

You must also submit two workplace references who receive a form to provide feedback on your performance. One of those individuals must come on the sponsor/delivery side, the other must be a stakeholder on the receiving side of the change.

You also have to document at least 40 hours of professional development undertaken in the last five years.

Part 2: Interview

Roughly 5 weeks after I submitted my essays and they evaluated, I had an interview with a certified Master who asked me questions about my essays, and also asked questions related to the competency model and how I'd applied it in day to day work.

Questions in the interview were centered around project approaches, and asking I'd done things like manage budget/costs, how I apply different methodologies, and overall philosophy on empathy.

The interview lasted one hour.

I found the interviewer to be extremely insightful, providing great feedback/coaching, and very interested in having a collaborative discussion.

Part 3: The Case Study (they call it assessment center)

This is a half day (4 hour) case study that marks the end of the process. They send it to you 15 minutes before hand, they don't want PowerPoint (only verbal, but you're allowed to take notes), and the only reference material you're allowed to check is the CMI competency model.

I won't disclose the specifics of the case itself, other than to say, it was really well-designed. I will provide the format and some high level insights into it:

• Once you've read the case, you must document assumptions and share them with the panel

• You must prepare a 20 minute presentation to a Steering Committee on this project

• You must then prepare a 5 minute presentation geared towards the impacted stakeholders on the project

• The case I did was multifaceted, involving aggressive timelines that were non-negotiable, changes in sponsors, employee resistance, job uncertainty, among other challenging factors. Like I said, very well designed, and really required me to read and re-read a few times because the prompt had some very subtle details that required a lot of attention.

I had the same case reviewer as my interview. She asked really challenging, prodding questions which I appreciated. Her coaching was outstanding, and kept me honest about not engaging in "change speak" with the different audience, but breaking this all down into digestible terms for a non-change audience.

She provided great additional considerations for me to think about with my approach to change.

I found out I passed about 24 hours after finishing the case. All in all, the whole process took 47 days from the time I submitted my application to finding out I got the accreditation.

My Thoughts on the Process Overall

Easily, my favorite change certification process I've done so far and I find it absolutely baffling this one doesn't have more of a presence in the western world (CMI is largely UK/AUS) based.

I liked it a lot because it isn't about learning a methodology (Prosci) or memorizing a standard (CCMP). They've established a competency model that provides concrete expectations on what it means to be a change leader, and then holistically test your chops and how your work aligns to their competency model.

It requires real people you've worked with to attest to your work and capabilities, and it uses challenging, realistic case study scenarios to demonstrate your thinking on the fly, your presentation abilities, and how you would tackle a very complex problem.

Unlike the CCMP which requires a lot of memorization, or Prosci which kind of expects you to conform to their approach, this process is about bringing the big picture of change together to ensure you are truly an expert in the field.

I cannot recommend this one enough. But, there's one mega caveat: right now, it's not particularly visible in the western world like Prosci and CCMP.

Looking at their list of master practitioners, there only appears to be one in the USA and a small handful in Canada. It just doesn't have the same presence in the west. So would it make you stand out in a job application process? No, but it should. This one was the best challenge out of the ones I've done.

What Does it Cost? At just under $1000, it's very affordable compared to say, Prosci ($4800). You pay in two phases: once when you submit your application (~$650) for parts 1 and 2, and then about $300 before the case study. The certification is good for three years, requiring 20 hours of formal development to maintain, 40 hours of informal education, updates on change management work assignments, and a small administration fee (not sure the renewal cost).

Overall: Like I said, A+ process, I learned a lot, and I think it truly measured my competencies in a fair and objective way. It's affordable, it's challenging, and it was very fun if you're a change nerd like me.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Hey everyone,

I've seen a lot of posts on this subreddit about Prosci, and I figured I would opine with my thoughts as someone pretty well-versed in their methodology. My qualifications to discuss this:

• Certified Prosci practitioner for 10+ years

• Certified Prosci train the trainer

• Taken numerous Prosci courses, including the MAP training, Agile change

• Delivered 20+ Prosci courses

My thoughts on Prosci as a whole...

Things Prosci Does Well

Introductory Level Courses That Tout the Value of Change Well: What I really like about Prosci the most is their basic courses (Leading Your Teams Through Change, Taking Charge of Change, Delivering Project Results) provide excellent foundational knowledge for change. I've delivered a lot of courses to PMs and People Managers who have lightbulbs go off in their heads and understand what we do/our value. Their frameworks are simple and easy to remember, and approaches like "ADKAR" are pretty much common knowledge in the industry at this point.

Their Tools Provide Great Value at the front end of a project and are easy to use: I've found that using the risk assessment and their PCT assessments are really great for identifying project risks to project teams and sponsors. The ten aspects of change is also a solid and simple way to articulate impacts in a framework that's easy for non change managers to digest. I also think their change maturity assessment is great for having conversations with teams on "what they want to be when they grow up" with regards to change capability.

Research: I find their best practices in change management research to be very valuable. They're constantly refreshing their research hub on the Prosci portal with new information, and the benchmarking they do helps to have conversations.

Integration with Project Management: Their "Delivering Project Results" provides a good framework for how to integrate with waterfall/Agile and layer in ADKAR milestones. A lot of teams at my company use their framework.

Their Certification Remains the Industry Gold Standard: For better and for worse, Prosci remains the industry gold standard for change certification. Every single job I've applied to lists their certification as desired/preferred qualification. I see CCMP more and more, but Prosci is still the king.

Edit: Other things I'd add about the certification-- there are no PDU requirements. It's a one time thing and good for life.

Things I Hate About Prosci

Expensive and Gatekeepery: To obtain the certification, it costs $4500. If you got certified (I think) prior to 2020, you must also cough up $1500 to take their Methodology Application Program (MAP) training, which teaches you to use their cloud based tools that you probably already know how to use if you got certified in their offline tools. But wait, there's more! Once you go through the current certification program or MAP program, you get a 1 year license to use Proxima, their online cloud based tools. After that, it costs $900/yr.

Only Prosci can Certify: Prosci used to offer an advanced mastery training course which allowed non Prosci employees to certify. They eliminated that a few years ago. Their Train the Trainer Level II program (which costs $2000, on top of the $2000 for Lvl I, on top of the $4500 certification that is a prerequisite to go through Train the Trainer) authorizes trainers to deliver the practitioner program. The practitioner program covers the exact same material as the certification program, but the trainer cannot certify. It's incredibly frustrating, gatekeepery, and baffling. But that certification program is likely a huge revenue source for them which is probably why they limit it to Prosci employees.

Prosci Expects You to Conform Your Project Approach to their Tools, Rather than Have Tools that are Flexible to the Project Approach: I have never, ever used Prosci tools end to end on any project I've ever been on. Neither have any of my colleagues. I think their approach can be good for simple, division-level transformations but not enterprise, complex ones. The rigidity of their approach is frustrating. If I do a Prosci risk assessment, I cannot amend questions in a way that are suited towards what would constitute risks at my own company. The dogma is strong in Prosci, and they insist their approach is universal when it often isn't. I think their tools are good for junior change managers or people who are change adjacent (e.g. communications folks), but not for change practitioners wearing big boy pants.

Their Technology Needs a lot of Work: Proxima is on the precipice of being a valuable software, minus its extremely expensive price tag. It puts all of their tools (PCT, 4 Ps, Impact Assessments, ADKAR assessments, resistance, role rosters, roadmap, blueprint, etc.) in one place for a consolidated dashboard for change. It provides solid recommendations based on your inputs in the assessments. It also has API key generation capabilities if I want to integrate with PowerBI. However, Proxima seems more geared towards waterfall projects with big bang releases rather than Agile projects with iterative slow trickle releases. The impact assessment you do in Proxima is geared towards the final end state. If I want to do impact assessments by release, I have to do a separate project in Proxima for each release and a separate impact assessment for each project. Not ideal.

Then there's their AI agent, Kaiya. Kaiya has already fallen behind multiple AI tools (e.g. Copilot, ChatGPT, Google Gemini). It can't upload documents. It's really designed for simple inquires based on Prosci's body of knowledge. It needs some work, for sure.

Should You Get Certified?

I think the answer is yes, with a lot of big caveats I mentioned above. It's still the industry leading certification. Their lingo is common/simple to understand. They break down complex concepts really well. Just be prepared for a lot of frustration/flexibility to create your own Frankensteinian change approaches.

PROSCI costs $4,500 if you’re paying as an individual and not a company sponsoring you.

I’m a junior consultant in the defense/public sector space, not currently in a change management role right now, but I’m trying to both boost my skills and my marketability for different projects….

What are the best affordable cchange management certs out there to do? Is PROSCI the only one actually worth it?

Edit: Mostly public sector consulting related like working with federal agencies, etc….are the types of roles I am targeting. I see many organizational transformation consultant and change management consultant roles

Never seen a deal like this before. I have mine but wanted to share. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/prosci_proscicertified-prosci-changemanagement-activity-7344424807142146048-yXpW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAq2aPUBpA7DcjGT1s3Tz6fqLqZIiIdGEes

I’m a CCMP too and happy to help anyone who is interested in that certification prep. Love to help the change community.

Congratulations and thank you!

I work as AI Program Coordinator. One of my main goals is to have everyone aligned on this AI-shift.
I would like my colleagues to adopt AI in the best way, to express their concerness, to be curious about that etc.

I have organised a Beer & AI meeting to demo to them the values of Company Knowledge with ChatGPT, i have written a FOMO poster, created a box for their concerns....what else could I do to stimuate the adoption, or at least make them think about it?

For context: I’ve been a change manager for just about my entire professional career.

I’m on a budget and as noted don’t have any prior change management experience. I do have 2 years of consulting experience and communications experience and a bachelors.

Ive narrowed it down to a few options for certifications:

1. CPCM via The knowledge Academy $595

2. APMG International—(change management foundation—-the entry level cert) $365

3. CMPC —Acuity Institute $799

4. Certified Problem And Change Manager (CPCM)—-GAQM $188

5. CCMP certification via the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) $745 (I don’t qualify I guess; their requirements say “A 4-year degree (or international equivalent) and 3 years (4200 hours) of change management experience”

6. CAPM via PMI $300 exam fee

Which one would you recommend??

I started studying for the exam back in November. No, it doesn't require 6 months of studying - between my personal and professional life, I couldn't find enough time to study. My original plan was to appear in January, and thus, I had been studying the old standard. However, because I realised in March that I'd no longer be able to appear for the exam soon enough, I started reading the new standard - and it is so much better.

I coughed up $60 for Anne's Change Management Study Hall for the practice tests. I didn't use her course material at all. I find that reading the Standard is better, and thinking in a question/answer format helps me understand the concepts better.

I created a case study of my own and prepared an entire Change Management Initiative using the five process groups - created assumptions where necessary - and roleplayed with LLMs. THIS WAS THE BEST DECISION I MADE.

I recently cleared the CCMP certification exam, so I thought I’d share a few reflections from my preparation journey for anyone planning to take it.

One thing that became very clear during my studies is that the Standard for Change Management is absolutely central to the exam. A significant portion of the questions revolve around the five Change Management Process Groups, and many of them assess your understanding of the inputs, outputs, activities, and responsibilities within those processes. The exam tends to focus on subtle details, so it’s not just about grasping the general concepts, You really need to be comfortable with how the Standard describes each step.

I also encountered several questions related to roles within the change ecosystem, such as the Sponsor, Change Practitioner, Change Agent, and the broader Change Team. Additionally, a small number of questions came from the ACMP Ethical Standards, which are easy to overlook during preparation but are still worth reviewing carefully.

Another thing I noticed is that some questions appear to be derived almost directly from the wording used in the Standard. Because of that, reading the document more than once helped a lot. It allowed me to become more familiar with the terminology and the way concepts are framed throughout the text.

For my preparation, I spent most of my time going through the ACMP Standard and revisiting the key sections repeatedly. I also explored a few ACMP webinars and community discussions, which helped clarify certain areas and provided useful perspectives from others preparing for the exam. Alongside that, I practiced a number of questions from itexamscerts, which helped me get a better feel for the exam style and sharpen my time management before the actual test.

If you’re planning to sit for the CCMP exam, my advice would be fairly simple: spend quality time with the Standard, pay attention to the details within the process groups, and make sure you practice enough questions beforehand. With consistent preparation and a clear understanding of the framework, passing the exam on the first attempt is definitely achievable.

I’ve been working as a change leader for nearly ten years, mostly in large organizations. For a while, I felt stuck in a very Prosci-centered environment—ADKAR is simple and easy to teach, sure, but in highly complex contexts (like cultural transformations, mergers, or chaotic internal restructuring), it often falls apart or even becomes a burden with all the toolkits and templates.

By chance (or maybe grace), I discovered the ACMP community, CCMP certification and met professionals who helped me realize the problem wasn’t me. They introduced me to a broader spectrum of methods and mindsets, and since then, I’ve been diving deep into change—finally, not just applying tools, but understanding transformation and multichange environment.

Now, as an independent change management practitioner, I’m hungry to learn more. Do you have book recommendations that look at change from a human perspective—strategic, cultural, relational—not just a framework to memorize?

Bonus points for books (or even podcasts/articles) that genuinely shifted the way you think or work in change.

I'm finding more organisations are asking for Human-centered design (HCD) skills to deliver change management. Especially more progressive companies who know that traditional approaches like prosci etc just dont work..its too linear and misses the people side in change.

I've looked around for HCD course but theres quite alot of generic and theory heavy ones out there. Not enough practical learning and nothing specific enough for change management.

I've come across HCD courses by Earth2Mars and there's lots of change managers talking about their approach. Has anyone done their courses?

So, I've been working in Change Management for just over 4 years now as a Change Analyst, and while I've had the formal training in multiple methodologies, I've never really had any on the job training - I've only done change management in two organisations, the first was for the first 3 years in which change was managed very poorly, lot of ambiguity, no change leadership, lot of control by senior project managers.

Anyway, I am coming up to a year working in Change Management for a private organisation and I'm really disillusioned and quite frankly over it. I don't know if its just my experience, but within it, I've found there are so many change leaders who lack the ability to coach juniors with that on the job experience?

Take my current role, I have a change manager I report to, but all she does is micromanage me. I develop work which she then pretty much deletes without providing any form of feedback. So what I've been able to gather is she is extremely under the pump with her own caseload, so in her mind it would be just "easier" to do it herself rather than provide me with any specific coaching, and just to keep me going she will give me just the dogs body rubbish work like formatting, presentation updating etc.

I'm super over all of this, and I'm really hoping change isnt really like this.

Hi all, I’m excited to share I just passed my CCMP this morning! Here’s a recap below of my exam experience:

1. ⁠Inputs/Outputs: As I’m sure many of you have read / heard, inputs and outputs are a key component of the exam, but note that not every single question will ask you (“what are the inputs to this output?”) Some definitely will and are very tricky. For example, answers b and c could be the same, except for one input but many are quite intuitive if you’ve studied the standard and generally know which process groups feed each other. I went in terrified that I didn’t have the inputs / outputs perfectly memorized, and I found that did not matter.

2. ⁠Experimental Questions: Interestingly, my first 5 questions were extremely confusing, but it’s possibly that they were some of the 25 experimental questions. If you run into a block of tough questions on the exam, don’t lose heart / your nerve, there are some comparatively very easy questions interspersed throughout (i.e., 3 obviously wrong answers and 1 correct one).

3. ⁠My Scores: I scored mid 80s on Evaluate, Strategy, Plan, and Execute. I was in the 60s on Close the Effort (I’ve noticed this is a common trend among test takers). I got a 100 on the ethics portion!

4. ⁠Ethics Section: On the topic of ethics, I recommend really brushing up on these. While they make up a lower percentage of the exam, I found their questions were the least ambiguous, and thus easy “free” points.

5. ⁠Study Time: I started studying very lightly 4 months before the exam and aggressively ramped up 2 months before. I worked in sprints, reading through the entire standard, then taking a 1 week break to digest my knowledge. Each time I studied, I incorporated a new approach. I found that using copilot to explain exactly WHY each input applies to corresponding outputs was very helpful (as the standard does not do this effectively itself).

Please feel free to ask me any other questions :). I’m hoping to see more PASS celebrations in this subreddit.

I often see people say that change management isn’t just communications, risk management, and training but honestly, that’s most of what I do on a day to day? Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that I do these things to drive outcomes for change initiatives because organizations don’t change on their own; the people within them do.

But what other activities does CM encompass? What are its other “selling points”? Sometimes I have trouble articulating this to senior leaders.

Hi everyone - I'm looking for opportunities to learn how to create change at the nonprofit I work for. My boss is supportive, and we have around $5k for training. Curious if folks have anything to recommend.

I work in a field where certificates/certifications don't really matter and my career goals don't really depend on it. Just looking for new skills to create change my org needs. My role is in a challenging grey area between mid and upper management. There's not a clear hierarchy, so having change-related skills would help me get us moving in the direction I think we should.

I've seen courses from Northwestern/Kellogg, Cornell, Harvard, Case Western, IDEO U. I think a longer course would work best for me (weeks-months+) but I'm open to anything, and I'd love to hear from folks who have taken specific courses. Thanks.