Want a simple yet objective way to measure the likely success of a project or change initiative? If you answered yes to that question then the DICE framework, developed by the Boston Consulting Group, may be just what you need. 

In the past 50 years thousands of books have been written about change management. This is because change management is hard. It is also complex with no two change initiatives having the same factors in play.

In recent years many of these books have focused on the soft factors which affect the outcome of a change initiative such as communication, employee motivation, visionary leadership a la Steve Jobs, employee culture etc etc.

Whilst these soft factors do have an impact on project outcomes, what the Boston Consulting Group found through research, is that it is the hard factors where management should focus most. Essentially, if you don’t pay attention to the hard factors then the soft factors won’t get the chance to raise their head as issues to address in the first place.

One advantage of the hard factors is that they are easy to measure either directly or indirectly, and because they can be measured then they are relatively simple to influence. By measuring and then impacting positively the hard factors, organizations can increase the chances of project success.

What exactly are these hard factors? They are project elements such as the estimated length of the project, the competency of those people working on the project (known as the project integrity), the commitment of both employees and senior management to make the change happen, and also the additional effort required from employees above and beyond normal workloads to implement the change.

The 4 DICE Framework Factors

There are four factors in the DICE equation, each one representing a letter making up the word DICE, defined as follows:

• Duration: the duration of the initiative or the length between milestones/reviews, whichever is shorter.
• Integrity: the team’s performance integrity, their skill level relative to the project’s requirements.
• Commitment: rates the commitment level of both senior managers (C1) and employees (C2) to making the change initiative happen.
• Effort: the effort in addition to usual work the the project requires of employees.

Now that we understand the individual factors let’s take a look at the DICE equation:

What Does it Mean?

Before we look at what specific DICE scores mean, there are a couple of points to note about the equation. Firstly, each factor should be scored between 1 and 4 using fractions if appropriate. This means C1 and C2 must total 4, maximum. Secondly, note that particular importance is placed on team Integrity and management Commitment as both of these factors are doubled within the equation.

What you need to know about the DICE Project Score is that the lower the score the more likely the project is to succeed. Note that 7 is the lowest score possible whilst 24 is the highest score possible. Each DICE Project Score will fall within one of the following three buckets:

• WIN: initiatives with scores between 7 and 13 are very likely to be successful and considered to be in the Win zone.
• WORRY: initiatives with scores between 14 and 17 are in the Worry zone, and action should be taken to move them to the win zone.
• WOE: initiatives with scores between 18 and 24 are in the Woe zone. These projects are very risky and highly likely to fail, and strong action should be taken to address the four influencing hard factors immediately if we want to increase the likelihood of success.

Summary

Originally developed by BCG (Boston Consulting Group) the DICE framework gives senior leaders and change leaders a tool to enable them to worry about the right things, for example, by thinking about the four factors we can clearly see that the time between each project review is more important than the total length of the project. The DICE framework also projects a means of communicating to the project steering board that a project is likely to fail even at the very early stages of a project.

The ability to persuade others is an important skill at all organizational levels. Powerful skills of persuasion can make your life much easier as people will buy into your ideas and opinions more quickly. Ultimately, improving your powers of persuasion can help you to achieve the same or better results but with less resistance.

When I am trying to persuade someone I will typically use the steps outlined in this article: How to Influence Anyone, which is based around understanding the motivations of the people you are trying to influence/persuade.

There are also 4 P’s to additionally keep in mind if you want to build a persuasive argument. These P’s are based around understanding and improving how you are perceived by others, rather than what is motivating others. So here they are, the 4 P’s of Persuasion:

• Power
• Positioning
• Performance
• Politeness

Let’s examine each of them in turn…

1. Power

By Power we mean than when it comes to persuading people to do things for you, then the more power you are perceived to have, the more likely you are to be able to persuade those people. The key point here is that it is perceived power that is important, not actual power, even though they are often the same. As a simple example, it is easy to see how your ideas might be more readily accepted if you’re perceived to be a senior level executive as opposed to a lower level executive.

2. Positioning

Positioning refers to how people talk or think about you when you’re not there, and is different from power. Are you perceived as someone with the best interests of the company or your customers in mind? Are you dressed in a way that is appropriate for what you’re asking? Each of these things can affect your positioning. As a simple example, it is easy to consider how your ideas might be perceived more positively if you are known as an up and coming executive with senior allies, as opposed to a new hire.

3. Performance

Performance is about how you perform each and every day. This refers to the competency level you display each and every day in your domain. For example, if you are a person who is widely respected within the organization as always delivering what you say you will when you say you will, then you will obviously have far greater persuasive powers than if have a poor reputation within the organization.

4. Politeness

The final factor is politeness. When you treat people right they are less likely to be obstructive to your ideas. If you treat people really right and connect with them personally, then they may even be willing to go out of their way to help you accomplish what you want.

Summary

Sometimes a project or initiative that fails to meet its original objectives can be seen as a success if people’s perceptions are carefully managed. In addition to managing people’s perception of projects, it is just as important to manage people’s perceptions of you as a person, leader, team member, and employee. The 4 P’s can help your address the different influencing factors people will use when forming an opinion of you.

* Image by Simply Jan

If you are a senior leader or manage a large team, then the sheer number of people within the team can make it very difficult for you to discover the superstars. If this situation sounds familiar and you’d like to conduct some talent management then the performance and potential matrix, sometimes known as the 9-Box Model, is for you.

The Performance and Potential Matrix enables you to examine the entire talent pool of an organization for potential future leaders. In the example below you can see that the x-axis represents performance and the y-axis assess potential.

Advantages

There are a number of reasons why you should consider using the 9-Box Model, including:

• It is simple, easy to use, and effective.
• It provides a common language for assessing potential making it easier for the leadership team to discuss. It can also be a catalyst to get the leadership team talking about talent development.
• It facilitates a feeling of shared ownership of talent management as opposed to the individual feelings of single individuals.
• Robust debate amongst the leadership team increases the accuracy of the matrix and creates buy-in from all.

Using the Model

The first thing to do is to spend time to get your immediate reports to buy into the idea of using the model. You’d be surprised how reluctant people can be to rank the people in their organisation and share this information in a leadership team, which is why its important to get buy-in before you begin.

As part of this process you should agree a common way to measure the performance of each individual. Define as a team a leadership competency model to assess leadership potential, and determine how performance will be measured (perhaps against individual performance/bonus targets).

Once everyone has been added to the matrix then as a leadership team you need to have a meeting to go through everyone in the matrix and debate their position until there is consensus on all positions. One thing I’ve noticed from using this model is that when it comes to 1A superstars there is usually very little debate, but below this level the conversations get interesting.

It will come as no surprise that the focus for leadership development should be your high-performance superstars, those in boxes 1A, 1B, and 2A.

What does each Box Mean?

1A: Outstanding Performance / High Potential

This individual is a high performer with high potential. The individual has been given additional challenges and achieved excellent results. The individual is ready to broaden the scope of their work. Development ideas for 1A’s: give them stretch targets, switch to a new job in a different functional unit, or perhaps give them ownership of a new start-up idea. Also consider finding them a mentor or provide access to ‘privileged’ training.

1B: Good Performance / High Potential

This individual has put in a good performance and has high potential. They are a strong performer who meets the the expectations placed upon them. They should be ready to broaden the scope of their work in the next 12 months. Development ideas for 1B’s: the development ideas should be similar to that for 1A’s, but additionally pay attention to competency gaps in their current role so they can move to 1A in the next assessment.

1C: Poor Performance / High Potential

The individual is not meeting the targets in their current role, however, they have a high potential. It could be that they would be better suited to a different role, or perhaps they just need increased supervision and guidance in their current role. Development ideas for 1C’s: if the person has the potential but isn’t performing then you need to identify the cause of the poor performance and build together an action plan to rectify the problem. This frequently includes moving the person to another role if they are not a good fit for their current role.

2A: Outstanding Performance / Moderate Potential

The individual is exceeding targets in their current role, however, their line manager is unsure they would be able to handle increased responsibility or complexity. Perhaps more training and monitoring is needed over the coming months before determining if they are ready to step up a level. Development ideas for 2A’s: this should be similar to 1A’s, however, take time to assess their ability to progress. One way to do this over the medium term is to assign a mentor who can both develop them and gauge their readiness to advance.

2B: Good Performance / Moderate Potential

The individual is currently meeting the targets required of them but may not be either willing or able to take on more responsibility or complexity. This individual may be putting in a solid performance, but they may be missing communication skills, or strategic alignment, or may simply just be happy where they are. Development ideas for 2B’s: people in this category often make good solid team members and you can typically leave them in their current position, but do from time to time offer stretch assignments to test their desire to advance.

2C: Poor Performance / Moderate Potential

Individuals in this box may not have been doing their current role long enough to be meeting expectations, or may have been doing it too long, such that things have moved on around them. Development ideas for 2C’s: as this category is typically used for people too new to a role to rate it can often be useful to assign a same-level peer to act as a mentor for this person.

3A: Outstanding Performance / Limited Potential

It is quite common for individuals in this category to have fantastic technical skills, but display limited aptitude or desire for leadership. Another characteristic of individuals in this category is that although they perform above expectations, and they understand the organizational values, they have difficulty implementing them into their work day to day. Development ideas for 3A’s: provide recognition through rewards for the current job they are doing, allow them to broaden the scope of their current role. Consider asking them to mentor others. Be honest and open yet sensitive about their potential for advancement.

3B: Good Performance / Limited Potential

This person is putting in a solid performance, however, it is felt that at this time this person would be unable to handle additional complexity or responsibilities. Development ideas for 3B’s: Again you need to be honest about potential, but use some form of training to help them increase their performance.

3C: Poor Performance / Limited Potential

This individual is not meeting their current targets. Additionally, there are concerns that this person may not be able to handle the complexity the role requires. Development ideas for 3C’s: use a performance management approach rather than a career development approach to manage their poor performance.

I run both a Mac and a PC. The Mac is of course beautiful to use but there are just some things I need for my professional life that it doesn’t do, so I use a PC too.

It is always an exciting time when you get a new computer. But in my experience it doesn’t take long before your enthusiasm starts to wane and your computer starts to slow down. I’m never sure which happens first – they most probably happen in parallel.

In these chastened times it might be difficult to get your boss to sign-off a new computer for you, so one option to consider is to try and get a little more life out of your existing computer. Here are some tips that might help you do just that:

• Remove any software you no longer use as you never know what it is doing and whether it has parts of it running in memory.
• Defragment your hard drive – this takes a while but definitely improves performance, especially if you haven’t done this before.
• Empty the cache of your browser. You might be surprised at just how much room your cache can occupy over time.
• If you still need more performance then you can try adding additional RAM to your computer. If after following the other steps above you computer is still not performing well, this extra memory should give your computer a noticeable performance boost.

Finally, in addition to the above steps you might want to consider a tool such as simplitec.com which can give your computer a thorough spring clean and restore your computer to its former glory, and perhaps even rekindle some if that initial excitement you felt when you first bought it.

When concepting and planning new products companies often begin by first examining their target customers. This is a good thing. However, when examining their customers, companies often start by segmenting them, for example, by age or address, and then targeting their new products suitably within these segments. This, according to Clay Christiansen, a professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, is a bad thing.

The simple fact that 95% of consumer product launches fail is enough to convince Christiansen that this approach isn’t working. The primary reason these products fail is that they don’t fulfill a real or perceived need. A new approach is needed, one that is based on an even deeper understanding of how consumers behave.

The issue is that consumers don’t live their lives according to segmentation – they just can’t be that easily pigeonholed  Most people take life as it happens, and when they encounter a problem in their lives they essentially “hire” a product to solve that problem. Being in a certain demographic may correlate with a certain decision to hire a product, but it doesn’t drive that decision. For example, just because you’re an 18-24 year old college student doesn’t mean you’ll buy a certain brand of cola.

According to jobs-to-be-done theory, when a customer has a job to be done, for example, to satisfy a thirst, they hire a product to fulfill this problem. They could hire any one of a number of products to solve their problem dependent on circumstances, so while a cola might be great in the morning because of the caffeine kick, an energy drink might be better before a workout.

Once you have a really deep understanding of what jobs your customer needs help fulfilling you will be able to build products that fulfill their needs, be they perceived or real.

Now you have a product which fulfills their needs, Christensen proposes using purpose branding to attract customers. Purpose branding means is that the entire product brand and how you communicate with consumers should be solely about the particular job-to-be-done the product satisfies. For our energy drink we might make the marketing message all about having a better workout and thus looking better and being happier. For our cola we might make the marketing all about having a great start to the office day because of the caffeine kick, perhaps even making a fantastic presentation to your colleagues.

Here are some simple examples of jobs-to-be-done marketing from the real world:

• FexEx gets your package from one place to another as fast as possible.
• Ikea helps you furnish your home TODAY.
• Dominoes pizza allows you to eat in your home within 30 minutes, “you get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door within 30 minutes, or it’s free!”.

Summary

With jobs-to-be-done theory Christensen is proposing that companies dig very deep to understand both their customers and their desired customers. The company should then use those insights to build not just better products but better marketing propositions built around these insights, which are both more relevant and resonant. Ultimately, the company that understands the problems of its customers the best will will.

* Image by eston

It’s an obvious fact that the smaller and more lean your business the less cash is required to run it. It’s the same with people, the bigger you are the more food you’re going to consume each day.

More often than not, when I’ve seen large businesses try to launch new companies or internal profit and loss entities, they first allocate a team to the grand idea. Sometimes they allocate a budget at the same time as the team, but more often than not the initial team is left to determine the viability of the new business by building a business case and a plan to support it.

The business case evolves by looking at what might be needed to run the operation, for example, developers, and advertising budget, business development people, manned phone lines etc. The next step is then to estimate revenues. Then in a very theoretical way, revenues are increased where thought possible and costs are reduced until the combination of costs and revenues makes the plan seem feasible.

Unfortunately, in my opinion this is exactly the wrong way to build a new business for most businesses. I believe that when launching a new business it should be done in the smallest possible way. What I mean by this is the least expensive manner in which the new business, which let’s face it is just an idea, can be proved to be viable.

Once the business has been proved to be viable then by all means invest some serious money to ramp it up and roll it out. How can you go about testing your idea in the smallest possible way? Here are a number of simple ideas…

To save on advertising how about launching in a single very small town rather than a city wide or national launch. To save of money manning phone lines a virtual PBX is a consideration rather than actually manning the lines. To save on developers how about not building a full system but just a simple demo to test the demand is there.

I’m sure you get the idea by now. Embrace lean thinking and think big but act very small until you’ve proved the idea.

Image by Roebot

We’ve defined customer lifetime value before, but this time we’re going to look at a very simple example that everyone should be able to relate to. If you’re a business owner or department head this may make you think differently about how you advertise or run your customer service operations.

The example we’re going to consider is what the lifetime value of a visitor to a restaurant might be? We’re going to assume that this restaurant isn’t in a tourist hotspot and therefore values repeat business. We’re also going to consider this question in relation to the best customers of the restaurant.

Let us imagine we have a person who eats out between 2 to 4 times per week, maybe they are a busy professional who likes to conduct business over lunch and/or dinner. Let’s assume that including tips they spend $80 a time for the whole meal.

If the restaurant can get that person to eat with them once a week over 7 years then the lifetime value of that customer is over $29,000! Now, if you’re a restaurant owner the question you should be asking yourself is – do you treat your customer as though they might be worth $29,000 or do you just treat them like they’re worth the $80 meal they are buying?

Once you understand customer lifetime value you should understand the importance of providing your customers with great customer service, each and every time.

Here is a method this restaurant could use to acquire and retain the best customers:

Use Groupon or a similar business to get customers through the door. When these users contact you to make their reservation you will know that they are a Groupon user. Treat these customers like special guests when they visit the restaurant, for example, tell them they’re getting the best table available, and have the manager introduce themselves once the customer is seated etc.

Think about it – if you were to visit a restaurant for the first time and be treated this well wouldn’t you come back again?

The next step to obtaining and keeping great customers might be to record and track customers names and phone numbers in a database each time a reservation is made, so you can identify your great customers and treat them extra special each time. You can also try that little bit harder to make the experience of good customers who haven’t been for some time, extra special.

Conclusion

The customer lifetime value example above shows that over their lifetime customers can be extremely valuable to a business. Once a business understands this they should understand the benefits of providing great customer service every time. In fact, the best customers are often so valuable, that if you can identify them it is often worth making that extra special effort above and beyond your normal high level of service with them every time.

* Image by renehamburg

There is a tendency for new companies to try to hang on to all activities within the business and remain in control of them. In my opinion it is always important to control the strategic assets of the organization, but everything else can and probably should be outsourced.

Common items to outsource include payroll and employment law dealings, such as the employment law services from ClearSky-HR.co.uk. A list of the common reasons to outsource are provided below:

• Delivery of cost savings. The outsourcing company is the expert and can deliver the service at a cheaper cost than you can.
• It maintains focus on the core business of the organization, because brain cycles are not wasted in understanding and optimizing the processes involved in non-core activities.
• Outsourcing may facilitate you to make better use of internal resources.
• Where resources aren’t available internally and are expensive to recruit it can make sense to outsource, for example, most medium sized companies would outsource their employment law dealings.
• Outsourcing can result in reduced capital expenditure, for example, on cleaning products or computers. This responsibility is pushed to the other company who must now buy these capital items. In many cases they already own the items which is another reason why its often less expensive to outsource than to do it yourself.
• If you are outsourcing offshore you may be able to use the difference in timezones to your advantage, for example, by using a “follow the sun” helpdesk which allows your business to run around the clock, 24/7.

In summary, I think the main reasons to outsource is obviously for the cost savings it enables you to enjoy, but also because it enables you to have a laser focus on your core activities that are going to differentiate you from your competitors in the marketplace.

* Image by cisshadab

No matter what level within an organisation you are currently at, you can always improve your leadership communication skills. The skills below are easy to practise, and will make you engage more meaningfully with those you work with, and deepen and broaden your understanding of the issues at hand so you can make better decisions. They will also help you navigate your way skillfully through difficult meetings where strong personalities with opposing opinions clash.

I love an acronym, so to make the six techniques easy to remember use the acronym SUGAAT. The techniques are listed below:

1. Summarize
2. Use Contracts
3. Give constructive feedback
4. Active Listening
5. Ask open questions
6. Take Time Outs

Let’s go through each of the SUGAAT techniques in turn:

1. Summarize

In both your one to one discussions and team meetings it can be a good idea to summarize regularly (every 10 to 15 minutes being a good rule of thumb). By summarising you ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of the situation and remove any lingering ambiguity.

Summarization also helps to create a milestone within a discussion so that the discussion can move on, and that old ground (decisions made) does not need to be revisited.

2. Use Contracts

Contracts bind us and can be used for all sorts of reasons. For example, if you’re having a one to one with a team member and you need to tell them to get their act together, change their behaviour, or do something different, then at the end of the meeting consider using the contract, “do you have five minutes for me to give you some honest feedback on your work?”.

With this contract you are asking their permission for you to give some honest feedback, which means the feedback won’t be coming as a complete left field surprise. You are giving them the option of not having the feedback – perhaps their mind is on something urgent and they really don’t have five minutes. You are also letting them know that although they probably won’t like what you have to say, it will be over in five minutes.

Contracts can also be used to reach a consensus. Once you have discussed an issue in detail and you believe you have a decision, then if you ask, “does everyone agree?”, then inevitably someone won’t agree and the whole debate starts again. A better option might be to use summarization followed by the contract, “can you live with this?”. Here you are most importantly asking people if they agree with the decision, but you are doing so in a way that makes them consider if this is a battle they want to fight.

3. Give Balanced Feedback

As the conversation develops it is important to give constant feedback. Research has shown that in high performance teams the ratio of positive to negative feedback is 5.6, meaning that for each point of negative feedback/enquiry, 5.6 items of positive feedback are given.

Keep this ratio in mind as you interact with an individual or the team.

Sidenote: A similar feedback ratio has been found to exist in successful marriages, where a positive to negitive ratio of 5.1 has been observed. This compares to marrages which end in divorce where the ratio is just 0.77.

4. Active Listening

Active listening refers to really listening to what someone is saying, not just looking like your listing. It means paying attention to the person who is speaking and giving them time to finish. When you speak reference what the other person has said to show you’re understood. When they are speaking, nod at appropriate points to show they have your attention. Ask questions to understand the data points and logic that have helped them to reach their point of view.

By doing this the other person will be much more willing to share and as a consequence you will understand the issue far more deeply than you would have otherwise.

5. Ask Open Questions

This point is particularly important if you’re in a more senior position than others in the room, or have a forceful personality. Asking closed has a number of negative aspects including directing the conversation and making people defensive.

By asking open questions you get to understand the other person’s point of view and the evidence which has made them form that view. By asking open questions you may get unanticipated answers which build your understanding and in turn make you better at your job.

6. Take Time Outs

Time outs can be used in conjunction with summarization and are useful in situations where strong opinions exist, and no side wishes to yield.

As an example, if you are in a meeting and there are three differing strong opinions, A, B, and C, then it can be a good idea to ask everyone to stop the debate momentarily so you can check your understanding of each person’s position. You now summarize position A, then summarize position B, then summarize position C. Once you have done that you can also to request (open question) more information about position A, then position B, and finally position C.

You can take this even further by asking the different parties to highlight what they agree with in the other positions, and also what part of it they could live with (contract). This technique can help defuse difficult deadlocked conversations and open people up to new directions and ideas.

Summary

The six tools listed above can make you better at all aspects of communication. They are easy to try out but will take time to master. Use the acronym SUGAAT to help you remember the tools to use (SUGGAT is worth 7 points in Scrabble. If only Scrabble allowed acronyms then I’d be a Scrabble genius. Ha ha). SUGATT stands for: summarise, use contracts, give constructive feedback, active listening, ask open questions, and take time outs.

* Images by highersights and aturkus.

How are small and medium sized business facing up to the coming year? What do they predict that the future will hold for them? What lessons have they learned from the downturn and are they optimistic about the future?

The infographic at the bottom of this article shows some results from a study of 3,000 small to medium sized business owners across six countries – the US and five countries in Europe. 500 businesses where use for each territory. The study was conducted by the people at Hiscox business insurance.

Let’s examine some of the findings of the study, some you will find in the infographic below and some are in the detailed study:

• With the exception of France and Spain all respondents are more optimistic about the future then they were last year.
• The two biggest fears of business owners for the year ahead are that government will not support small businesses, and that cost increases will have to be passed on to customers.
• Interestingly, 9 out of 10 respondents in the survey found a positive benefit of working in a small company rather than a large organization. The two biggest benefits being more flexible working hours and a better work-life balance.
• Most SME’s thought the best way to promote their business was word of mouth. This was followed by using their website, advertising, and then direct mail (both email and snail mail).

What stands out for me in this study and the associated infographic is that 80% of respondents thought word of mouth was the best way to advertise. To some extent I agree with this – if you can get  people advocating your business then you will be successful. However, as the businesses are small to medium in size I think to achieve any kind of scale they would need to combine this with other forms of advertising. One way to plan this additional advertising is to use the marketing wheel.