One of the ways agents can bolster their credibility with sponsors is by not coming across as eager to apply implementation assistance to every initiative that surfaces. This can be accomplished by encouraging sponsors to engage in a Degree of Difficulty assessment and discussion that we as agents help facilitate.

A change is difficult when it falls somewhere between easy and impossible. The “difficulty criteria” is clear (How much change is involved, the desired result, and how crucial it is to succeed). However, determining if a particular project is “in crisis” is not a cut-and-dried calculation.

At the low end of the Degree of Difficulty scale are change efforts that are incremental in nature, have installation as an acceptable outcome, and are viewed as good ideas. At the high end are initiatives that are transformational in their intent, realization based, and considered business imperatives.

Most change projects fall somewhere between the two extremes. Some might be of the highest importance (business imperative) and nothing less than full realization will suffice, yet the shifts themselves fall within the limits of continuous improvement, not paradigm leaps. Other efforts might be highly transformational but not necessarily constitute an absolute necessity to accomplish.

Organizations display different levels of tolerance for facing difficulty. For example, if each of the criteria were to be measured on a 20-point scale, one organization might feel comfortable with no extra implementation attention given to a project that scores 18 on the transformational factor, while another would invest special resources to any initiative scoring 12 or above.

These three factors cannot be addressed independently. They require examination from a holistic, integrated perspective. For some organizations, anything that comes closer to realization focused and business imperative alerts leaders to be particularly careful with implementation. Another organization, however, may take the position that both must score high before any extra effort is put into implementation.

Assessment tools are definitely helpful in objectifying the analysis, but ultimately, this is not a subject that lends itself to diagnostic interpretations alone. In addition, it’s valuable to collect various impressions from key people who understand a project’s implications, and then use this information as the basis for a healthy discussion before the decision maker determines the path forward.

In the Next post: Free Download of Conner Partners’ Degree of Difficulty Assessment Tool

Go to the beginning of this series.