Impacto: User Guide
Impacto is both a framework for thinking and a design and delivery process for communications and projects. As a process, it helps gain other people's commitment in our cause and it ensures that a team is aligned in its thinking.
Having completed an Impacto, the following outcomes should be evident:
A powerful and engaging story can be told about a project or communication
A team is aligned in its thinking around a specific project or task
A team or an individual is clear about objectives and what needs to happen to get there
An audience hearing the story is enrolled and committed
Impacto is particularly valuable when there is a need to:
Structure an enrolling presentation or communication
Map out a team's ideas around a particular venture or project it is about to embark on
Get our own ideas clear around a venture we are about to embark on
Gain the support of others
Test for others' understanding
Plan a meeting or series of meetings
To get started, find the domains where you feel you have some material, some interest, and some energy to state the case. Put down whatever you have. Emptied of this, take a stab at a domain which remains thin or empty. At the invention stage, do not concern yourself with how well the story hangs together. More important now to get everything you believe you know and want on the map.
It is only when we tell the story to someone else that we must follow the domains in the correct sequence. This is the key to building layers of understanding, agreement and commitment between ourselves and the others. The move from one domain to another offers a natural place to pause and check the level of alignment with the audience. And to listen!
Purpose
Purpose provides a foundation of meaning for the rest of the communication. If the purpose is unclear then the communication will be too. Purposes are the steadying forces on which the rest of the communication rests.
The following questions should prompt the right kind of content in the Purpose section of Impacto:
Why put energy into this in the first place?
Where does this effort fit in the overall purposes of the organisation?
What is the group’s highest intention?
What is required and why are we the people to provide it?
Urgency
Urgency provides the context that is driving the need to do something. It explains why there is a need to act now.
What is the opportunity – when does it begin and when does it pass?
What risks do we face by inaction?
What now threatens our progress/ existence?
What is wrong with things which must be changed?
What powers do we have that are not being fully exploited?
Destination
Destination provides an appealing view of how the world will look once changed by a group’s combined efforts. Acting purely out of urgency may cause reactive, uncoordinated movement if there is no destination in mind. There is a need for a compelling set of outcomes to shoot for.
What are the minimum outcomes that will still resolve our urgency?
What is the best of all possible worlds we are shooting for?
What do we want the good things we already have to evolve into?
What changes in the world beyond our organisation do we want to contribute to?
What will we become as a group in living out our intentions?
How will we be operating as individuals as a result of our work?
Who do we want to be five years from now?
Success Path
Success Path provides a set of stepping-stones required in order to progress towards the destination. This may be stated as a strategy or as a plan of events. It will describe how the story of success unfolds over time.
How do we get from our current situation to our destination?
What changes will occur as we move from here to there?
What is our game plan?
What are the stepping-stones to success in this venture?
Suppose we are standing in the future with our outcomes fully achieved. We are looking back in time. What did we do to get from there to here?
Commitment
This is the reality of each individual’s personal activity. What actions are already being done and what other near-term actions are required? These actions should be measurable.
How big a part of our work or life is this venture?
What are the stakes for me?
What are we already doing in service of this venture?
What resources of ours have we committed?
Where will things stand next week, next month?
How can the others help and what do we need them to do?
