By Luna Dominic, @deca.luna_ | Florida Atlantic University, FL
Competition Season is officially underway! Whether you’re preparing for your regional or state conference, here’s a strategy you can incorporate in your next role-play!
Performance Indicators are an important part of the DECA role-play. They’re the guiding principles that competitors must answer in their role-play as they present their business solution, idea or pitch to judges. Integrating ALL of your performance indicators is essential to success and earning top scores for each element. Today, we’re going to focus on how to effectively incorporate them into your role-play using a familiar acronym: D.E.C.A.
D.E.C.A. stands for Define, Explain, Connect, Above & Beyond. When approaching a PI, you want to be thorough so the judge understands why it’s important to the case study and your role-play.
- First, Define the performance indicator. Clearly state what the indicator represents overall and identify any key terms associated with the concept.
- Second, Explain the performance indicator. Elaborate on why the indicator is important in the given scenario or provide examples of what it entails.
- Third, Connect the performance indicator. Once you’ve explained the PI and its context, you need to directly connect it to your proposal, solution, idea or reasoning. Think, what part of my presentation addresses this indicator?
- Fourth, go Above & Beyond for the performance indicator. This step is critical to making your role-play stand out. Judges listen to and score many presentations, so having creative elements in your role-play will help make you memorable and set you apart from the competition. Examples of things you can include are charts, statistics, drawings, real-world cases and or other niche visuals to strengthen your delivery.
Now, let’s try using D.E.C.A on the following performance indicator:
Explain factors that influence customer/client/business buying behavior.
- Define: Buying behavior is the study of how individuals behave when deciding to purchase a product or service that satisfies their needs.
- Explain: These factors are important because they explain what leads a customer, client and/or business to choose, purchase and utilize specific products. Companies should consider these factors to enhance their marketing strategies, pricing functions and make their products more accessible to the public.
- Connect: Analyze the company’s customers and break down their current buying behavior, shifts in buying behavior, or areas for improvement. This step will vary depending on the case study.
- Above & Beyond: Chart, Statistic and Visual on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Now, it’s your turn! Consider the following Performance Indicator and apply the D.E.C.A strategy:
Explain the role of promotion as a marketing function.
Use the same four steps you practiced above (Define, Explain, Connect, Above & Beyond) to break down what promotion means, how it’s used in marketing, how it applies to your case study and brainstorm the creative methods you can add to strengthen your presentation of the indicator.
Were you able to hit all four elements? For more practice, choose a role-play from your competitive event on DECA.org and use the D.E.C.A strategy to answer the performance indicators. The more you practice effectively structuring your indicators, the more natural it will become! If you feel comfortable, try timing yourself to see how fast you can apply this strategy to a given set of indicators.
Tips and tricks:
- Remember, your goal is to demonstrate to the judges how you can effectively integrate a performance indicator into your roleplay. Instead of simply stating or “namedropping” the PI, structure your explanation to show depth and understanding.
- Make sure your explanation is relevant to the case study
- Use charts, real-world examples, or niche visuals to make your roleplay stand out!
- You don’t need complex explanations to score well! Stick to a logical progression and clear structure.
Good luck with your next role-play!
