Instill

Inculcate

Inspire

Phase 1: Anticipate

to expect; look forward to; to perform an action before another has had time to act

 Envision. Expect. Evaluate.

The future doesn’t always flow from its past.

INFUSE sees Phase I as an opportunity to define and consider your “universe of forces” that will shape (or are likely to shape) your current and future operating environment, from a long term vantage point. Launched with a “Discovery” step designed to capture both the current assessment and the drivers affecting change of the organization, Anticipate provides the framework necessary to contemplate the chaos in an organized, thoughtful manner across the operational landscape. This systemized approach ensures decision makers are informed with a common and collaborative foundation.

Anticipate typically includes the identification and assessment of the possible, plausible and preferred future(s) for your organization, consideration of disruptive forces, and evaluation of signals of change. This phase is also where the organization’s vision, mission, and strategic intent are developed.  By leveraging these key factors through collaborative prism, Anticipate drives competitive advantage and long-range strategic planning by “pulling” your organization towards its preferred future rather than “pushing” from its past.

INFUSE’s Anticipate processes are designed to accommodate short to long-term time horizons; 2+ years to multiple decades.

Tools and methods are deployed in a collaborative, integrated framework and often include, but are not limited to

• Stakeholder Analysis
• Qualitative Assessment methods

Phase 2: Strategy

a plan, method, or series of maneuvers for obtaining a specific result

Orient. Optimize. Organize.

Phase 2 Strategy incorporates the outcomes of the Anticipate phase and combines it with critical thinking and analysis to point your organization in the optimal direction. INFUSE ensures the decision-making process organizes the entire team in a cohesive manner so that it can fulfill its strategic direction, and it can be successfully defined, communicated, implemented and evaluated. 

Through collaborative processes, INFUSE deploys qualitative and quantitative techniques to

• Assess the future forces
• Define plausible directions
• Analyze organizational capacity for change
• Construct the pathway forward
• Determine mile markers
• Identify midcourse correction(s) or alternatives

This strategic planning will span multi-year initiatives with milestones, accountability, resource requirements, key organizational or operational performance measures.

A key component of Strategy is the INFUSE Strategy Map, built upon nearly two decades of research and implementation in non-profit and governmental organizations. The INFUSE Strategy Map provides just the right about of detail to give direction to staff and other implementers and keeps it at a high enough level to ensure board members, stakeholders and others who are not involved in the day to day management of the organization can stay on track and committed to the vision, mission and strategy. 

By seeing the big picture with enough detail to tie actions back to the issues identified most critical to the organization’s success, all stakeholders stay engaged and on track to support the organization in creating its future. 

Phase 3: Activate

to make active; cause to function or act.

Initiate. Implement. Incorporate.

Phase 3 Activate defines the near-term actions and puts them in motion. Activate ensures early milestone success to build credibility and buy-in to the long-range Strategy phase by making sure your organization is taking care of business in the short term. Success of a long-term plan can’t manifest if the short term isn’t implemented correctly. Activate defines the specific, measurable steps to achieve the objectives developed in Strategy. 

Activate develops clear and accountable actions, but a key feature in the INFUSE ISCAPE approach is that the plan has the capability to be modified without derailing it, if needed.  Its modular design allows a flexible planning template within a structure that keeps its integrity over time.  This unique feature of our proprietary processes provides organizations in ambiguous environments the opportunity to plan soundly and comprehensively while keeping all stakeholders moving forward together, even in uncertain situations.

Change happens. 

Outputs from Activate include specific, measurable short-term actions, tracking measures that are causally and visibly attached to the planning issue or strategic element the action was designed to meet.  Highly visible and designed to accommodate the range of participants interfacing with the plan, from daily users to quarterly board users, ISCAPE and its Strategy Map architecture ensures consistent communication of the strategic directions, the actions necessary to get there, and the changes occurring over time.