APMG Change Management Foundation common mistakes
APMG Change Management Foundation · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When a scenario describes a person who has just been told their team will be disbanded, the candidate labels the stage 'denial' and attributes it to Bridges' transition model, or describes Bridges as having five stages.
Bridges' transition model and the Kubler-Ross-derived 'change curve' are both drawn as an emotional dip and are usually printed side by side in revision material, so the two stage lists blur together under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Memorise Bridges as exactly three phases - Ending (letting go), the Neutral Zone, and New Beginning - and be able to name what happens inside each. Reserve shock, denial, anger and bargaining for the grief-based change curve. When a question names Bridges, scan the options for 'ending', 'neutral zone' and 'new beginning' before anything else.
On a question about why an individual trained on a new system is still not using it, the candidate selects 'Knowledge' rather than 'Ability', or reorders ADKAR to put Desire before Awareness.
ADKAR is memorised as a five-letter acronym without the question each letter answers; Knowledge (knowing how) and Ability (being able to perform in the live environment) sound interchangeable once the definitions are paraphrased.
What to do instead
Attach a question to each element and apply it to the scenario: Awareness 'Do I know why?', Desire 'Do I want to?', Knowledge 'Do I know how?', Ability 'Can I actually do it at work?', Reinforcement 'Will I keep doing it?'. Training completed but behaviour unchanged is the classic Ability gap. Also remember ADKAR describes an individual, not an organisation.
Reading 'resistance' in a scenario and choosing the option that suppresses, overrides or plans around the resisters, or treating staff who comply quietly with the change as 'committed'.
Everyday usage frames resistance as obstruction, and compliance looks like success on a project dashboard, so options that remove the obstacle feel like decisive management.
What to do instead
Treat resistance as information and energy: correct answers usually involve surfacing the concern, listening, involving the resister and addressing the underlying loss or capability gap. Separate compliance (does what is asked while watched) from commitment (actively wants the change to succeed), and choose interventions aimed at building commitment through understanding and involvement.
When asked where an action such as 'celebrate the first visible results' sits in Kotter's eight steps, the candidate places it in the first two steps, or puts 'create a vision' at step one.
The eight steps are recalled as an unordered checklist of good practices, so any step that feels like a sensible starting point gets picked as step one.
What to do instead
Learn Kotter as a dependency chain: urgency, guiding coalition, vision and strategy, communicate the vision, empower action and remove barriers, short-term wins, consolidate gains and produce more change, anchor in culture. Ask which earlier step the action depends on; vision cannot precede the coalition, and wins cannot precede communication.
Answering that in the Beckhard-Harris change equation the three factors are added, so a strong vision can compensate for low dissatisfaction, or stating the change proceeds as long as the total exceeds resistance.
The formula is remembered as a general 'three things you need' list rather than an explicit product, and additive thinking matches how people normally weigh pros and cons.
What to do instead
Memorise D x V x F > R. Because the factors are multiplied, if any one of dissatisfaction, vision or first concrete steps is zero the product is zero and the change will not happen; strength in the other two cannot compensate. Read such questions as 'which factor is missing or near zero?'.
Given a stakeholder with high power and low interest, the candidate chooses 'manage closely / engage fully' rather than 'keep satisfied', or assigns every stakeholder on the grid the same engagement approach.
The grid quadrants are learned as labels rather than as a way of judging how much effort each group's position justifies, and 'engage everyone fully' sounds like best practice.
What to do instead
Derive the strategy from the two axes instead of memorising quadrants: high power/high interest = engage closely and involve in decisions; high power/low interest = keep satisfied with concise, reliable updates; low power/high interest = keep informed and use as advocates; low power/low interest = monitor with minimum effort. Match the option's level of effort to the quadrant.
Treating stakeholder analysis as an early-project activity completed once, or listing only internal staff as stakeholders in a scenario that clearly involves unions, regulators, customers or suppliers.
Stakeholder mapping is taught as one of the first tools in a change lifecycle, so it is filed mentally alongside 'initiation' rather than as a repeating cycle, and internal focus is the default in day-to-day change work.
What to do instead
Describe stakeholder analysis as iterative: identify, analyse, plan engagement, engage, then review as positions and influence shift. When reading a scenario, build the list outward from the change - anyone who can affect or is affected by it, including external bodies - and check whether the question is really testing power, interest, attitude or impact.
Choosing a detailed written briefing or email newsletter as the primary channel for a complex, emotionally charged message such as redundancies, or assuming that increasing the volume and frequency of messages is always the right answer.
Email and newsletters are the most familiar and measurable corporate channels, and 'more communication' feels intuitively safe, so options offering richer or two-way contact get overlooked.
What to do instead
Match channel richness to message complexity and emotional content: face-to-face and two-way for complex, sensitive or contentious messages; lean written channels for simple, routine information. Treat communication as a two-way process - check understanding and provide channels for questions - and prefer the right message to the right people over blanket volume.
Confusing change impact assessment with risk assessment or stakeholder analysis, describing impacts as 'the chance the project fails' or listing only which groups need communication.
All three are 'analysis' products created early in a change, they share inputs and workshops, and on real projects their outputs are often combined into one spreadsheet.
What to do instead
Anchor the definition: change impact assessment identifies what will be different for the organisation and for specific groups once the change is live - processes, technology, structure, roles, skills and behaviours - and how big that difference is. Risk assessment asks what might go wrong; stakeholder analysis asks who is affected and how influential they are. Look in the question stem for 'what will be different' cues.
Treating change readiness as a single go/no-go decision taken at the start, or answering a readiness question with 'the staff have been trained' when the question is about willingness and capacity.
Readiness appears in project language as a gate or sign-off, and training completion is a convenient, countable proxy, so it gets substituted for the softer commitment and capacity elements.
What to do instead
State that readiness is assessed repeatedly across the change lifecycle and has both capability and commitment dimensions - do people have the skills, resources and time, and do they want to make it work? Use readiness evidence to shape the approach, not only to judge whether to proceed, and keep readiness distinct from resistance (a reaction) and from training completion (one input).