Resource Hub · Implementation and Change Tool
Anticipate how a proposed change may encounter familiar routines, workload, emotion, and agency—then determine which implementation conditions need attention before proceeding.
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Complete meeting sequence
Change Frictions and Implementation Readiness Scan
Purpose: Read adoption friction and institutional readiness separately, then assign responses and a proportionate next move.
Use this when: A proposed change may meet unfamiliar routines, extra work, emotional stakes, or constrained agency.
Start with: One bounded practice, affected and implementation perspectives, source evidence, period, and decision owner.
Time: 35–40 minutes for one prepared change; the steps allocate 35. Preparation takes 10–15 minutes. Use 50–65 minutes when policy, cross-unit work, risk, or authorization requires fuller planning. These are planning estimates; allow additional processing and participation time.
Participation: Think individually before discussion. Use bullets, a labeled diagram, or spoken ideas captured and checked by a partner. You may pass and return. Keep the required information and reasoning visible in your chosen format.
Name who encounters or carries the practice, what changes, useful continuity to preserve, the trial period, and decision this scan informs.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Practice / people / current-to-new difference · Useful continuity · Period / decision / owner
Reflect individually first. For inertia (familiarity), effort (actual/perceived work), emotion (loss, trust, uncertainty), and reactance (pressure or lost agency), record who experiences it, how, direct evidence or assumptions, and a possible design response.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Inertia — who / manifestation / evidence / response · Effort — who / workload / evidence / response · Emotion — who / valued role or loss / evidence / response · Reactance — who / choice or influence / evidence / response · Difference across positions
For every domain mark S sufficient for this trial, D developing, G consequential gap, or ? unknown. Record evidence, consequence if unresolved, and what would strengthen it.
For each labeled domain: S / D / G / ?; evidence; consequence; response. Review domains separately.
Include: Purpose and scope · Evidence and rationale · Participation and legitimacy · Authority and ownership · Capacity and workload · Workflow and policy fit · Equity and accessibility · Learning infrastructure · Communication and participation
Ask who defined fixed elements, whose input can change design, who gains first, and who carries labor or exclusion. Prioritize consequential friction or gaps and assign design changes, support, authorization, and monitoring.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Who defines / decides / shapes · Benefits / labor / risk / access differences · Priority friction or gap / response · Safeguard / compensation / redistribution · Owner / authority / date / early signal
Select proceed, stage first, revise, gather evidence, escalate, or pause/stop. Explain the evidence, what would change the decision, and who reviews new frictions during use.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Move / rationale / unresolved condition · Evidence or change signal · Monitor / adaptation log · Review date / participants / owner
All four frictions and all nine readiness conditions were examined independently, unequal consequences are visible, priority responses are assigned, and the decision has monitoring and review.
When evidence supports broader implementation, carry the findings into the Change and Implementation Plan.
The four frictions remain attributed to Nordgren and Schonthal; the nine readiness conditions and power-aware response plan are Collaboratory extensions. The brief is a Collaboratory presentation adaptation of this tool; its established sources and local contributions remain attributed in Optional support. CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0 informs the navigation and participation supports.
Complete instructions and working materials
Change Frictions and Implementation Readiness Scan
Work through the visible activity below. Use the Brief working canvas tab to enter or revisit your notes.
Plan the chosen activity, preparation, fieldwork, and review separately. The brief gives revised meeting estimates; allow more time to complete the full working materials or resolve missing evidence and commitments.
Why scan before implementation?
Teams often add more reasons, incentives, or enthusiasm when a change stalls. A friction lens asks what is making adoption difficult. A readiness lens asks whether the surrounding institutional conditions can support a responsible test.
The scan helps teams improve the proposal, surface uneven consequences, assign preparatory work, and make a proportionate next decision.
The four change frictions
A person or group may experience several frictions at once. Different positions in the same system may experience the proposal very differently.
Preference for what is familiar
How different does the proposed practice feel from what people already know and do? Which existing routines, defaults, or identities hold the current practice in place?
Possible design response: Build from trusted routines, preserve useful continuity, make the first step familiar, and stage the transition.Real or perceived work required
What time, learning, coordination, technology, emotional labor, or administrative work will adoption require—and from whom?
Possible design response: Remove steps, integrate with existing work, provide support, compensate labor, and reduce the burden of the first use.Feelings the change may activate
Could the proposal evoke anxiety, loss, inadequacy, distrust, grief, threat, exposure, or uncertainty? What valued role or practice may feel at risk?
Possible design response: Acknowledge loss and uncertainty, create psychological safety, offer practice and support, and avoid treating emotion as irrational resistance.Resistance to pressure or lost agency
Who may feel that change is being done to them? Where are choice, voice, autonomy, or professional judgment being constrained?
Possible design response: Invite meaningful co-design, provide bounded choices, explain non-negotiables, and make feedback capable of changing the plan.Implementation readiness
Mark each condition Sufficient for this test, Developing, Consequential gap, or Unknown. Read the pattern across the marks.
The intended change, population, boundaries, and smallest responsible test are clear.
The challenge and proposed response are grounded in more than enthusiasm or assumption.
People most affected and people with implementation knowledge have shaped the work.
Decision rights, operational ownership, escalation pathways, and continuity are defined.
Time, skills, staffing, technology, space, relationships, and compensated labor are realistic.
The test can function within—or intentionally examine—relevant routines, systems, and rules.
Benefits, voice, access, labor, risk, and possible exclusion have been examined and addressed.
Indicators, evidence sources, review timing, privacy practices, and decision rules are ready.
People know what is changing, which elements are fixed, why, how to participate, and how input will be used.
30–35-minute facilitation sequence
Begin individually so everyone can think before the first or highest-status speaker shapes the discussion.
3 minutes
Name the proposed practice, who will encounter it, the test period, and the decision this scan must inform.
5 minutes
Each participant notes likely manifestations of inertia, effort, emotion, and reactance before group discussion.
6 minutes
Ask who may experience each friction differently and separate evidence from the team’s assumptions.
8 minutes
Assess the nine implementation conditions as sufficient, developing, a consequential gap, or unknown.
6 minutes
Prioritize the frictions and readiness gaps that could cause failure, harm, or inequitable burden.
4 minutes
Proceed, stage, revise, gather evidence, escalate, or pause—and record what would change the decision.
Participant canvas
Complete before a prototype or implementation period begins. Repeat after early use or any substantial adaptation.
Bound
Proposed practice, prototype, or change
Who will encounter or carry it?
What will change from current practice?
What useful continuity should be preserved?
Smallest responsible implementation period
Decision this scan must inform
Diagnose
Difference to preserve: Which roles or groups may experience the same feature as supportive, burdensome, threatening, or controlling—and why?
Assess
Codes: S = sufficient for this test · D = developing · G = consequential gap · ? = unknown. A code describes the current condition at this point in time.
Audit
Who defined the change and its non-negotiables?
Who has meaningful influence over the design?
Who receives the expected benefit first or most?
Who carries added time, coordination, risk, or emotional labor?
Who may be excluded by schedule, disability, language, technology, transportation, role, or trust?
What safeguard, compensation, access option, or redistribution is required?
Prepare
Decide
ProceedConditions are sufficient for a bounded test with active monitoring.
Stage firstComplete specific enabling work before the test begins.
ReviseChange the design to reduce friction, burden, exclusion, or risk.
Gather evidenceInvestigate unknowns with people most affected or people with implementation knowledge.
EscalateSeek authority, resources, policy interpretation, or cross-unit commitment.
Pause or stopA consequential condition cannot yet be addressed responsibly.
Selected next move and rationale
Condition that could change this decision
Review date and participants
What will be monitored during implementation?
Next move: If another bounded test is needed, update the Prototype Learning Canvas, Rapid Prototype and Test Card, and Success Indicators and Learning Plan. When evidence supports implementation, carry the readiness findings into the Change & Implementation Plan. Revisit this scan during early implementation and at regular review points.
Equity and facilitation safeguards
Implementation analysis becomes harmful when legitimate concerns are recoded as attitude problems or when enthusiasm from decision-makers outweighs workload and access evidence.
Examine resistance in context.Friction describes the relationship between a proposal and its context. Examine the design, history, incentives, workload, and distribution of power.
Distinguish real from perceived effort carefully.A burden that looks small to designers may be substantial for people navigating disability, caregiving, contingent work, limited authority, or unfamiliar systems.
Treat emotion as information.Anxiety, loss, or distrust may reflect prior harm, role threat, uncertainty, or exclusion. Listening is part of implementation design.
Create genuine participation.Consultation paired with meaningful influence can reduce reactance. State what can change, which elements are fixed, and how participant input altered the plan.
Avoid one readiness score.A high average can conceal a serious privacy risk, inaccessible process, absent owner, or uncompensated workload.
Re-scan during implementation.Friction and readiness change as people encounter the work. Record adaptations and review new burdens, relationships, and unintended effects.
Where it fits
Stress-test the proposed workflow, ownership, access, workload, and the experiences of affected people and implementation partners.
Clarify which gaps the team can address and which require resources, policy decisions, or formal authority.
Watch for new effort, emotion, reactance, workarounds, and uneven effects that emerge through use.
Use the Evidence-to-Decision Canvas to interpret outcomes, implementation conditions, and adaptations together.
How this tool connects
Use these handoffs flexibly. New evidence may send a team back to an earlier tool.
Conditions thread: Carry the selected condition, people and context, institutional cue, evidence status, and remaining uncertainty into the next tool.
after people experience the change in practice.
One bounded practice, affected and implementation perspectives, source evidence, period, and decision owner.
35–40 minutes for one prepared change; the steps allocate 35. Preparation takes 10–15 minutes. Use 50–65 minutes when policy, cross-unit work, risk, or authorization requires fuller planning.
Share purpose and prompts in advance when possible. Offer private preparation, accessible formats, and a recorder or partner. Plan how outputs will be returned, stored, and reviewed.
Generic higher-education example
A university is considering a short, optional orientation for students and faculty mentors. This composite example draws on general higher-education patterns.
InertiaInformal, department-specific onboarding is familiar and may be tied to professional identity. The design preserves local examples while offering a shared core.
EffortSeparate meetings could add scheduling and mentoring labor. The first test uses existing meeting times and offers an accessible asynchronous pathway.
EmotionNew researchers may hesitate to reveal uncertainty; mentors may hear standardization as criticism. The invitation frames orientation as shared preparation.
Reactance and readinessFaculty and students co-design adaptable elements, while required safety and access practices are explained. The test pauses if participation depends on uncompensated coordination labor.
Source and attribution
Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal developed the four-frictions framework—inertia, effort, emotion, and reactance—to explain forces that work against adoption of new ideas and change. The 2025 Collaboratory curriculum used these four frictions as a pre-implementation prompt.
The Resource Hub extension extends the activity with position-specific evidence, nine institutional readiness conditions, a power and equity audit, an implementation response plan, and a proportionate next-move decision. The Collaboratory contributed the 2025 use and this extension. The four-frictions framework remains attributed to Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal.
Nordgren, Loran, and David Schonthal. 2021. The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Book site
Kellogg Insight: “To Sell Your Innovative Ideas, You Must Overcome These 4 Frictions”
Adapted and developed by Jessica A. Leveto, Ph.D.
Intellectual foundations: Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal’s Four Frictions framework, extended through institutional readiness, power, equity, and implementation evidence.
Suggested citation: Leveto, Jessica A. 2026. “Change Frictions and Implementation Readiness Scan.” Sensemaking Collaboratory Resource Library. https://sensemakingcollaboratory.org/resources/tools/change-frictions-implementation-readiness.