DICE®

BCG’s DICE tool helps companies better predict project outcomes.

BCG’s DICE tool assesses the outcome of change initiatives based on four critical elements: Duration of the project, Integrity of the team, Commitment to change, and the Effort of stakeholders. Organizations can set up an initiative for success by thoroughly addressing these DICE factors.

  1. Duration: the length of time until the change program is completed or (for longer programs) the amount of time between milestone reviews. Contrary to popular perception, studies show that a long project that’s reviewed frequently is more likely to succeed than a short project that isn’t reviewed frequently.
  2. Integrity: the project team’s ability, measured by the skills and traits of people on the team, and how it’s configured. Since the success of change programs depends significantly on the quality of teams, companies often succeed by assigning their best people to the effort.
  3. Commitment: the degree to which top management shows visible support for the effort, and how well employees embrace it.
  4. Effort: the additional requirements that the change initiative demands of employees. Project teams must calculate how much work employees will have to do beyond their existing responsibilities to change over to new processes. Ideally, no one’s workload should increase more than 10%.

For more on change management, why the process is so challenging, and how leaders can powerfully flip the odds in their favor by applying DICE, please see the Harvard Business Review articles we have written on the topic: A Way to Assess and Prioritize Your Change Efforts and The Hard Side of Change Management.