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Adapting to Change: Mapping the Scope of Impact

May 2025 | Courtney Thornton 

This spring, we wrapped up efforts to ensure a clear end goal for each implementation plan initiative and started engaging contacts in a new question: Who needs to adapt their behaviors to fully realize the intended benefits of the initiative’s end goal? In other words, we’ve started scoping the impact of each priority initiative on the people of NC State. 

Who needs to adapt? It’s an essential question to ask at the outset of any initiative that requires people to change. Why? Because the institution benefits most when its people are equipped for the changes ahead. And that preparation requires thoughtful planning. 

We’re asking initiative contacts “scope of impact” questions in a standard, repeatable way. This enables us to aggregate and use insights from the data. We inquire about three things:

  1. Who needs to adapt? We ask contacts whether their initiative end goal would require different behaviors from one or more of three broad, enduring categories of people at the university:
  • faculty,
  • staff and/or administrators, and
  • students.
  1. How many? We then ask contacts to estimate whether their initiative end goal would require tens, hundreds or thousands of people in a category to adapt the way they work in some way. When an initiative affects only some people in a category, the contacts describe those affected individuals. For example, it may be groups with certain titles or job responsibilities.  
  1. How often? Finally, we ask how often the required adaptations will impact the affected individuals’ daily tasks and routines. We use a t-shirt sizing method — small though extra large — to estimate this. If the affected individuals will experience the changed behavior daily, we categorize this as an extra-large (XL) impact. If they will experience the changed behavior rarely, we categorize this as a small (S) impact.

Interesting thought exercise, yes? Several initiative contacts told us it was. By answering the three questions above, our initiative contacts are better prepared to think further and ask:

  • What risks or resistance might the initiative face with each affected group?
  • How can the initiative team address those risks or resistance early on?
  • Have I communicated, or plan to communicate, about the initiative with each affected group?
  • How will the initiative team help each affected group gain the knowledge and skills they need to adopt required changes?

Want to consider your initiative’s impact on people at NC State?  

  • Here’s a one-page worksheet to guide you through the same exercise described above. Use insights from the exercise to incorporate opportunities and actions that prepare and ready people throughout your initiative.

Interested to learn more about practices that foster successful initiatives at NC State? Contact Genevieve Rockett, Implementation Specialist, Institutional Strategy and Analysis at gcrocket@ncsu.edu.