The ability to deliver successful change is increasingly becoming a real determinant of competitive advantage. Yet, delivering successful change is one of the toughest challenges that companies face, especially complex, high-stakes, breakthrough change. Studies show that, depending on complexity, 50-75% of major change efforts fail to realize intended results.

What if you could minimize that risk of failure, powerfully flipping the odds in favor of success?

We studied hundreds of major change programs at companies around the world, with a goal of developing a more effective approach—one that would reduce the risk and virtually assure a positive outcome.

Based on our findings, we created a systematic, Technology Enabled Change Management approach that addresses:

• Operational and organizational changes
• Behaviors that affect program outcomes and are critical to success
• Rigorous program development, tracking and reporting to stay on schedule and on budget

It is clear that the outcome of change initiatives is driven by four elements: the overall (D)uration of a project or time between structured milestones; the performance (I)ntegrity of the team; the organizational (C)ommitment to change; and the additional (E)ffort required of staff members. Assessing projects against these four elements, which we call DICE, can greatly help institutions achieve successful change from ideation to impact. We have created a methodology for scoring and statistically analyzing the dynamics of DICE, thereby allowing objective assessment of the likely outcome of transformations (or a transformation)—helping to “load the DICE” in your favor.

DICE is based upon a complex, multiple regression analysis. Nevertheless, a simplified formula can be readily approximated below, where simple step functions for each of the elements of DICE are used. In 2014, BCG was granted a US patent for DICE, one of the few patents that have been given for a mathematical formula.