PMI Digital

Adoption risk assessment. Manager capability that stays.

You approved the investment. How much of it will your people actually use? PMI Digital forecasts how much of a transformation’s value is at risk, and in which divisions, before it is lost. Then we teach your managers to secure it, and they keep that skill for every change that follows.

Pre-Mortem result

Illustrative company
$200 mnew system investment
$80 mexpected benefit a year
Division A$3.2 m
Manufacturing$13.0 m
Division C$1.7 m
Division D$1.0 m
Division E$7.4 m
Division F$2.2 m
Forecast benefit at risk, per year$28.5 m
Likely to adoptSlowerHigh risk
Bars show forecast adoption by division. The result at no cost shows every division and names one. The full report names them all, down to each manager. Figures are illustrative, not a client result.
88%

of business transformations fall short of their original ambition. Bain, 2024, more than 24,000 initiatives.

5%

of corporate AI pilots show a measurable profit impact. MIT, 2025. Every company is investing in AI now.

70%

The figure everyone quotes began in 1993 as an admitted guess. No study has ever backed it. Hughes, Journal of Change Management, 2011.

Transformations rarely fail on strategy. They fail on adoption: people keep working the old way, because no one taught them the new one.

We assess the risk. Then we build the capability to remove it.

Adoption risk assessment

Everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the front line, completes the Pre-Mortem©, a short eight-minute questionnaire. It forecasts adoption for every team and converts it into money at risk by division, using your own investment figures.

It can run before the money is committed, during the rollout, or after it, when results are not arriving.

Manager capability that stays

Your managers learn our own training method, unique, easy to pass on and easy to repeat, in which the manager is the star: the manager shows the new work, has each person try it, corrects it, and confirms it is used in daily work.

They keep that skill. The next system, process or upgrade does not need outside change managers, even when all that changed was a button.

What the forecast means in money.

The same illustrative company, worked through. Every figure comes from the company’s own investment plan and its employees’ answers. Results are reported in the currency you work in, whether US dollars, yen, won or baht.

Transformation investment$200 m
Expected benefitas approved by the board$80 m / yr
Forecast benefit at riskeach division’s share of the benefit, times its forecast shortfall in adoption$28.5 m / yr

The full report separates the amount at risk into three parts, so your CFO sees a figure that does not double-count:

  • Delayed: benefits that arrive late because adoption is slow.
  • Not realized: benefits that will not arrive without action.
  • Already spent: licenses and training paid for and not used.

The decision for the executive is simple: what is it worth to protect $28.5 million a year?

From forecast to verified adoption, in four steps.

  1. 1

    The Pre-Mortem

    At no cost

    The company-wide forecast, the result for every division, and one division named with the funds at risk in it.

  2. 2

    The full report

    Delivered in person

    Every division and manager, the money at risk in each, and an adoption plan for every manager.

  3. 3

    Manager-Led Diffusion

    120 days

    Every manager teaches the new work and confirms it is used, with a method that is easy to pass on and repeat. The divisions most at risk receive more support.

  4. 4

    Executive Adoption Reviews

    Day 30, 60 and 120

    With the CEO and sponsor: where adoption is verified, where it has stalled, and whether results move up the chain, not just instructions down.

Training scores tell you how the course went. Not whether anyone changed.

On one rollout, reports looked perfect for months. Then a manager began taking leave at every month-end, because that was when the reports had to be run in the new system, and he had never learned how. Someone else was doing it for him.

Training score100%
Adoption0%

We are not a change management firm.

We do not sell months of consultant time, stakeholder maps, communication plans or readiness surveys, and we do not run your transformation.

Your managers own adoption, and responsibility rises with each level, up to the CEO. We assess the risk, give your managers the method, and check that it is working. When we leave, the capability stays.

Built on published measurement, not a proprietary story.

Charles B. Pribyl, CEO. Former Gallup managing consultant who built the Asia business in North Asia, based in Tokyo. Resident in Japan since 1987.
Neuroscience. First author of an fMRI study of engagement, selected as a Top 3% Paper by the Society for Neuroscience and covered by the New York Times.
Measurement at scale. Lead developer of a behavioral EQ scale used in 6 languages and 11 countries, with about 200,000 people measured.
On the record. 19 peer-reviewed papers and 50 conference presentations. Permanent Director of the Japan Society for Research on Emotions and editor, Japan Association of Applied Psychology.

References available on request. Media coverage is cited for factual attribution; no endorsement is implied.

Cover of The Death of Change Management by Charles B. Pribyl

The Death of Change Management: Manager-Led Diffusion

The full argument, the science behind it, and the operating model that replaces activity with adoption. Kindle, paperback and hardcover.

Buy on Amazon

Find out how much of your investment is at risk.

For executives about to commit, or already committed, to a transformation, a system, a merger or an investment: a short conversation about what a Pre-Mortem would forecast for your organization.

Request a Pre-Mortem