ICF's ASPIRE^® Method

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ICF's ASPIRE® Method is a flexible and adaptive consulting methodology ideally suited for business engagements.

• The Benefits of ICF's ASPIRE® Method
  
  
• The Methodology of ICF's ASPIRE® Method

How do you define ICF's ASPIRE® Method?

The letters in ICF's ASPIRE® Method form the framework and define our structured, repeatable approach to thinking about and solving your business challenges. Following this method helps reduce project risk and guides the project team, step by step, toward a successful and valuable result.

Agree on the challenge. Establish the mission, method, goals, team, and motivation of the e-business consulting engagement. Survey the landscape. Develop a clear starting point as a baseline for measuring progress. Plan the solution. Develop an architecture of key elements for achieving the engagement goals. Implement the solution. Develop the solution and manage the transition on a detailed level with full communication. Review to ensure business value. Regularly monitor the solution to ensure that business value is achieved. Evolve the solution. Use the new capabilities to respond more rapidly to continuously changing requirements.

The Benefits of ICF's ASPIRE® Method

• Ensures that consulting resources are focused on the customer's business mission and positive outcomes
• Provides a structure for effective control and visibility over projects
• Reduces costly missteps and rework resulting from unstructured planning
• Provides a shared context, resulting in better communication

The Methodology of ICF's ASPIRE® Method

Why do we advocate a standard approach?

All the work we do is knowledge work. A standardized process helps us find new ways to extend our clients' efforts in order to do work more productively. A method helps us find ways for our clients to build leverage by providing tools, training, support, and rewards.

• Increase Your Vision and Achieve Collective Coherence
• Use a Shared Vocabulary
• Support Common Models and Ways of Thinking
• Enhance Your Core Values

To ensure successful implementation efforts, we align our solutions with your organization's mission and vision, the culture, the business processes, and the capital. ICF's ASPIRE® Method is rooted in our four-part model in which the culture, the process, and the capital must work together to support your organization's mission and vision.

Culture

The cultural dimensions of your organization must be actively managed to ensure future success of the proposed solution. These dimensions include management commitment made visible through active support and stakeholder buy-in made possible through training, effective communications, and perceived value of the proposed solution.

Mission and Vision

The mission and vision are the purpose or core business and reason the organization exists in association with the shared picture of the desired future state.

Capital

The capital, or existing and potential technology requirements, must be established to ensure the adequate acquisition, processing, and presentation of timely, quality data to decision-makers and stakeholders.

Process

The business processes on which management decisions are based must be fully understood by those directly and indirectly involved before applying a solution. The proposed solution must also fit within the overall operations concept, which incorporates interactions among stakeholders and partners.