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This
tool uses two simple criteria to assess opportunities – ‘Impact’ and ‘Ability to Influence’.
The idea behind this tool is that if the option will not have
significant impact, it is probably not worth taking forward to action. Additionally, even if the option will have
significant impact, but you can’t do much about implementing it, then it will
be difficult to realise that potential impact.
Aim to choose options that will have significant impact and which you can influence. Leave behind those lower impact options or those that you cannot influence. In some situations it is useful to make a quick assessment of opportunities for ‘Impact’ and another relevant criteria, such as ‘cost’ or ‘motivation’. On the following page is a simple grid for assessing opportunities for ‘Impact’ and ‘Ability to Influence’. Beside the grid is a simple scoring sheet where you can record each of the opportunities you need to analyse and your scores for Impact and Influence. When using the Impact and Influence Tool in groups be careful not to fall into the trap of using ‘average’ scores to come to a rapid ‘group decision’ about the highest priority opportunities. Often times it is important to see both the spread of scores as well as the average. The thinking, insights and shared understanding stimulated by discussing broadly differing scores can be very powerful. Similarly, a large group seeing significant commonality of scores can cement commitment to the highest priority opportunities and to not taking action on lower priority ones. The Impact and Influence Tool can be linked with an electronic spreadsheet to make scoring by a large number of people faster to record, analyse and display. Steps to follow
Identify and highlight those opportunities with high scores for both ‘Impact’ and ‘Influence’. |
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