After the return to normal and with a second resurgence of COVID-19 in sight, many companies are adjusting to the changes in their business. While some industries, such as technology, are already more prepared for the new environment, more traditional industries have a much more complex challenge that in many cases can be the difference between surviving or closing doors.
The words execution and/or transformation have for many years been considered utopias because of the lack of means to link strategy or vision with initiatives that clearly lead to strategic changes. Additionally, much of the literature on these points was related to the more personal elements of change, such as motivation, culture or leadership. However, from the 90’s onwards, the effectiveness of the implementation of the changes began to be measured and it turns out that the factors that have produced the most impact in 1,000 initiatives analyzed have been the following.
- Duration (D): More than the duration of the projects, the frequency of revision of the objectives and tasks is fundamental to guarantee the success of the project. Review periods longer than 8 weeks lead to an exponential increase in problems related to the initiatives.
- Integrity (I): quality of the person responsible and his/her team that will lead and implement the change.
- Commitment (C): how effective is the communication with the company’s main executives (C1) and how effective is the communication with the people that will use the new systems, processes or ways of working (C2).
- Effort (E): ability by the project team to manage expectations and motivation to implement the new processes that may mean additional work hours as various adjustments until the final result.
The American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group used these 4 factors and created the DICE methodology that allows companies to evaluate their change initiatives and their probability of success. Each of the factors has a score of 1-4 (with 1 being the best and 4 the worst). For example, to assess the duration, projects with monthly reviews would be scored as 1, while those with semi-annual or annual reviews would be scored as 4.
Once each of the factors has been classified, the DICE rating would be calculated according to the following formula:
DICE = D + 2x (I) + 2x (C1) + C2 + E
Once this methodology is applied, the values would be between 7 and 28 points: projects with a score of 7-14 have a strong probability of success, those of 14-17 present a risk of failure and projects with more than 17 points should be reconsidered because of their high risk.
The methodology presented allows managers and leaders to have a simple tool to evaluate and prioritize the different initiatives of change or adaptation to a new scenario and thus obtain the results expected by the changes.
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now”
Alan Lakein
