Structured Visual Thinking™

SVT™ is a proven approach to resolving the most critical business challenges.

It is applied in close collaboration with leaders of businesses and organisations of any size and across every category.

It applies logic, visualisation and collaboration techniques that have been highly successful in every challenge over the last two decades.

It works by engaging the hearts and minds of those responsible rather than by augmenting external resources.

This means that the leaders and decision-makers can gain absolute insight into the why, how and when of transformation and change by leveraging existing capabilities within the client's team.

Over the last decade, we’ve been designing an online platform and bringing it to bear on almost all assignments to keep the alignment high and enable a sustained delivery model.

It is optional because clients are already software and application-heavy.

The Group Partners platform is purpose-built to sustain thinking and strategic planning and map directly to the structure of the frameworks we build with leadership teams.

THE GROUP PARTNERS PLATFORM:

Framework Science™

Framework Science™ is based on two decades of insight and learning.

We’ve taken all the evidence from all the cases and developed the mechanics, principles and patterns.

We’ve codified them within the platform.

They’ve enabled us to create tools and techniques to accelerate the gathering of insight, maintain the integrity of the frameworks that teams build in the sessions and the ability to sustain the effect of the commitments made over time.

The set of underpinning principles that inform how we apply frameworks allows teams to consider the widest context, leverage the insights that matter and maintain the most appropriate conversations.

All of this rests on an evolving archive of reference data needed to answer a specific business challenge or opportunity.

Understand and Agree on the Challenge

We work closely through calls, available materials and conversations to establish the best way to define the challenge or opportunity. We call this the ‘exam question’ – a way to define the challenge in a sentence or two so that, if solved, we would achieve success. This one question informs and focuses on everyone involved in each case.

Getting Acclimatised and Mobilised

We gather as much of the existing data and information as we can. This provides the context we need to maximise our work. It also creates efficiency, avoiding unnecessary burdens on clients’ time and maximising our effectiveness and understanding as we prepare for the work.

The Strategic and Operational Coherence Assessments

Two tests allow us to get a quick sense of the perspectives of the client's key stakeholders, exploring, in a highly engaging way and through an aggregated set of questions and scores, how everyone thinks the strategy and the operation are currently performing.

They evaluate, through our AI, how robust, relevant and meaningful the current strategy is. As a result, we quickly get to a baseline - a current reality that allows us to start with a solid foundation for the change or transformation program.

Designing the Program of Work

This step means everything from meeting cadence, designing the frameworks used throughout, and the expectation and onboarding of all stakeholders to the process. It also kicks off the logistics involved in any group sessions needed at the program's core.

We configure the right design for each challenge based on years of experience. We’ve developed an interactive scenario tool to give you an idea of what that might involve.

In-Person Sessions

Our technique is designed to ensure that in any business case, strategy or plan, there is full engagement and ownership among those responsible for the delivery, whether this happens on or offline, but a significant part of our work comes to life when the teams are engaged in live, ‘co-creative’ sessions of between one to three days.

The team sees the reality of their ideas transformed within the complete system of things. The logic ensures the question is answered thoroughly, and everyone can see where gaps or points of opportunity lay. Because this is graphically executed, the picture that emerges is permanent.

It is the team that now owns its future rather than a costly array of third parties.

Framework Integrity

Once the frameworks and blueprints are created, the real value of this approach is clear to everyone involved.

It is now possible to track the integrity of what emerged from the session based on what was agreed upon. Through self-assessment and comparison techniques, we can help the team stay on track and accurate to the spirit of the earlier sessions, as well as adjust when dynamics change, or fresh challenges appear.

The outcome of achieving framework integrity is coherence – suddenly, everything makes sense!

• Decisions are backed by clear logic, and data is understood and taken seriously.

• Teams are equipped to deliver what is expected of them - systems and processes support and enable teams to perform.

• The organisational culture is authentic and evident, and the organisation is focused on the things that matter.

Achieving Framework Integrity depends on open minds, situational awareness, clarity of Intent and collective commitment.

The Collaborative Platform - SVT Live™

Over many years, we’ve been developing an online platform to help teams stay connected to the frameworks we build together. Considerable value, energy and content are created as teams work with Structured Visual Thinking™.

We’ve built several tools - assessments and tests, configurators and indexes - all of which are accessible through the platforms we deploy (as required) for each client case.

Solutions

We solve many different business challenges, but at the highest level they can often be classed this way:

Strategic Transformation - For example, a client needs a new strategy in the market to compete or remain in a leadership position.

Operational Transformation - For example, a client is confident in their strategy but knows that many challenges exist inside their processes and systems - digitalisation, organisational capability and culture, to name a few.

Cultural Transformation - For example, transforming the business to embrace evolving business philosophy - diversity, inclusion, wellness, talent and hybrid working.

Business Model Reinvention - As a consequence of digital transformation, competition and the plethora of new channels to market, a prominent feature of our work looks at how innovation and disruption can be applied to the business model itself.

In Addition:

ALIGNMENT ON THE BIG PICTURE, the company vision - Aligning senior leaders and stakeholders behind a new and inspiring VISION.

PROBLEM-SOLVING - To tackle a BUSINESS CHALLENGE - one often defeated by other methods.

OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENT - New markets or opportunities open, and our clients need to create tailored strategies and PLANS.

NEW BRAND VALUE PROPOSITION AND STORY - Getting the leaders to think through a repositioning of their business and creating a common language.

BUSINESS PLANS - The client has a big meeting and an annual budgeting round or stakeholder event and needs to get their house in order with a clearly defined plan and strategy.

SILO-BUSTING – A client feels they can’t carry on with the disconnected nature of their operation. It is dysfunctional and cannot compete.

AND WE FOLLOW A RAPID DEVELOPMENT APPROACH:

The Group Partners Framework Collaboration System

We couldn’t find the tools in the market to help us sustain programs and ensure the sustainability of the frameworks we develop with clients, so we decided to create our own - a truly collaborative platform that would help teams to stay true to their vision.

The Aim Of The Platform - We build a bridge between the higher-level thinking that gave birth to your vision and the detailed work needed across the organisation to make it happen. Without the bridge, the business will continue to implement fragmented approaches, duplication, multiple interpretations and daily distractions that take people off course.

Constant Evolution - Digital platforms evolve. We tailor each client’s ‘instance’ and stay connected to see how well it supports the team and where they most need help. As the platform develops, it will increase in sophistication. We will continue to add more applications, features and ‘intelligence’ to improve the impact of the work and ensure increasing framework integrity.

Applying The Platform - The platform always remains an option. We do not insist that the client use the platform, but if adopted, we will create it the minute we begin each assignment and, over time, widen the access to correctly briefed users on the client team.

Sustainability - This means that teams adhere to the fundamental principles and criteria embedded in the logic and deliver what was designed in the strategy. We call this level of completeness and compliance ‘framework integrity’.

The Suite of Applications on the Platform

Assessments, Evaluations, Configurations, Story Tellers, Information Resources, team Interactions and Online Frameworks

Assessments and Evaluations

Group Partners assessments allow teams to run their assessments on various topics. The two you can find here (and take for free) are set around the coherence of the current strategy and the current operation.

Configurations and Framework Design

Once we have the ‘exam question’ and the results of assessments and interviews clarified, we can develop the frameworks needed to respond to the challenge. This is an evolution achieved through close collaboration with the client team. As we learn more, it remains an open discussion.

This means the exam question and, to an extent, the framework's design must remain fluid enough to adapt to fresh input throughout the program.

You can see an interactive tool that demonstrates the idea with examples of what is involved.

Diagramming Tools - Using commercially available collaborative tools and working with the client team, we can start to create the modules needed to stimulate better conversations or act as a foundational value for the business, moving forward.

The Framework Collaboration Tool

As the results from the framework and modules materialise, we evolve our focus. We distil the primary content that is critical to stay true to (and that will also guide and shape) new actions and future decisions.

As the assignment matures, the content evolves from a formulation and conversational level to a more presentational and executive level. This evolution provides a constant reference and reminder to the team of what they should be focused on and why it matters.

Framework and assessment data merge and improve over time, bringing deeper critical insights into challenges and successes. This is a primary reason we recommend that teams engage with the platform - to validate framework integrity and see whether they are making progress.

The platform allows teams to check the critical content and feed in on where it needs to change (and why). As work progresses, the teams can add context and updates to the framework.

• Updates can be made by adding links to the more detailed project documentation, evidence of achievement, supporting rationale or background information.

• Updates add depth and meaning to work and build greater confidence that teams are working on the right things.

• Achieving Framework Integrity™

Framework Assessments and Evaluations - The Key Features

• Enable self-assessment by as many people as necessary or relevant, to develop ‘health checks’ and baselines on essential areas

• Conduct assessments multiple times for ongoing comparison across periods - to test for progress, variance and change

• The option for case-specific, tailored and personalised assessments into topic areas that may emerge and require deeper dives.

• The results dashboard remains available for checking in at any time

• Alerts and flags will highlight notable points (personalised only).

The Key Features of the Framework Collaboration Platform

This engaging and collaborative platform is dedicated to each client instance. Each team member has their own login to the framework collaboration platform, and update requests allow teams to suggest changes and continue to feed in insights.

The following uniquely insightful and team-building features are also included:

• The ability to add and link to important context and add comments

• The important relationships across related modules are presented and their implications explained

• The team can directly input actions and progress updates

• The frameworks themselves are consistently mapped to the dynamics most affecting your business

Why Group Partners?

We are a small team of people at the heart of a global ecosystem of capabilities.

At the core, we are visual and critical thinkers. We are highly facilitative and creative. We are highly practical and supported by digital and creative practitioners, graphic designers and online experts. We have managed complex and global programs of strategic and transformational work for famous brands, national institutions and disruptive businesses of every shape and size.

We are flexible and responsive in the moment and faithful to your process rather than to a rigid ideology, solution or software package.

• We are a fraction of the costs of consulting practices - we leverage the resources and capabilities of the client.

• We make the process of thinking strategically enjoyable and the act of execution practical.

• We do everything we can in the shortest time possible

We Work:

AS AN OBJECTIVE PARTNER - We are a small team at the heart of a global ecosystem of capabilities. We are always collaborative. Always impartial. Always objective.

AS CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVERS - At heart, we are visual, system and critical thinkers. We love solving the challenges of our clients.

ON BEHALF OF CLIENTS - We were clients ourselves. We are not trying to create a dependency or sell a solution.

PRAGMATIC - We are both facilitative and creative - deeply practical and surrounded by subject matter expertise. We are practitioners first and consultative.

INTELLIGENTLY - We have built the tools and techniques that have been missing in this field. Everything we do is to reduce the complexity of strategic work but without losing the point.

RESOURCEFULLY - We are supported by digital and creative practitioners, graphic designers and category experts.

Our Clients

Our practice is dedicated to helping senior leaders tackle important business challenges and exploit new markets and business opportunities. Our client list includes small and entrepreneurial businesses as well as the world’s leading brands, government institutions and agencies.