UpScaleStrategy™ starts with a layer-by-layer strategic analysis defining exactly what specific activities will best help the organization within its business situation, and then communicates what’s most important and keeps everyone continually focused on delivering those activities.

1. Business Situation + Strategic Priority Distillation

2. Pattern Generation

3. Deploy Knowledge Work Patterns™

4. Observation + Periodic Assessments

Business Situation + Strategic Priority Distillation

UpScaleStrategy™ studies your organization, its culture, priorities, and most importantly, what precisely must be done across all roles to make the most of your business situation. We assist senior management in distilling their list of business priorities into (usually) five key priorities critical to the organization’s success over the next two years.

Pattern Generation

Next, we translate these critical priorities into key, ongoing, Knowledge Work activities. We take each priority and define exactly what activities will best support the specific priority for each level of management and staff – based on the business situation and stated goals. We identify roadblocks and competing interests, while balancing ongoing activity, creating a network of interlocking supporting activities and accountabilities. The resulting Knowledge Work Patterns™ are specific activities which powerfully deliver on the strategic priorities. But one of the reasons UpScaleStrategy™ continues to drive activity alignment for months and years is the method’s unique ability to make crucial activities accountable and visible to those responsible without adding superfluous tasks.

Deploy Knowledge Work Patterns™

UpScaleStrategy™ presents to staff a clear expectation of vital Knowledge Work activities. The patterns convey in familiar-to-employee language not only what needs to be done but also the pace or rate of activity that’s expected. The system then holds employees accountable to perform these realistic descriptions of what’s expected, which shifts employee focus to adjusting their regular activities to match the now-clear expectations.

Observation + Periodic Assessments

Managers start to watch the regular Knowledge Work activities of their direct reports since important activities, as UpScaleStrategy™ defines them, will be apparent to the manager responsible. Employees just focus on real, results-producing activities while their managers observe. After a number of months, periodic assessment discussions between employee and manager review how closely the employee’s regular activities match the Knowledge Work Patterns™. The UpScaleStrategy™ web system automates this process.

Once these few steps are complete, senior management has a next-generation tool to constantly communicate and drive the actual, ongoing, Knowledge Work activities that will strongly deliver on the organization’s priorities. The Knowledge Work Patterns can be quickly changed to accommodate business situation changes.