When it’s useful
You’ve tried to address a problem, but it keeps recurring. Commitments aren’t fulfilled, decisions don’t lead to action, or the same people carry too much responsibility.
You need to understand what’s contributing to the difficulty before changing responsibilities, allocating resources, renegotiating commitments, or trying another solution.
The Review focuses on one important piece of shared work. It can involve teams within your institution, external partners, or both.
What we examine
We look at how your institution and the people and organizations involved are set up to carry out the priority. The inquiry considers the conditions most relevant to the difficulty you’re experiencing.
Leadership and Governance
Who provides direction, who can make decisions, how responsibility is assigned, and what happens when issues require approval or escalation.
Resources and Operations
Whether commitments have the necessary staff time, resources, and authority, and how responsibilities, handoffs, and follow-through work in practice.
Relationships and Participation
Whether people can rely on commitments, raise concerns, influence relevant decisions, and contribute in ways that are useful and sustainable.
Evidence and Learning
Whether information about progress and difficulties reaches the right people, informs decisions, and leads to changes in practice.
These areas are examined in relation to your priority. The Review is a focused inquiry, rather than a comprehensive assessment of every function in your organization.
What you receive
An explanation of what needs attention
A written Review identifies the operating difficulties supported by the evidence, considers alternative explanations, and makes important differences across perspectives visible.
Recommendations for what to change
Prioritized recommendations explain what could improve the work, why those changes deserve attention, and what their implementation would require.
A focused action agenda
A 60–90-day agenda sets out proposed actions, responsibilities, dependencies, and signs of progress. It distinguishes recommendations from commitments you and others have agreed to undertake.
An executive discussion
A 60-minute session gives you space to question the findings, consider the implications, and decide which actions to pursue.
How IT WORKS
1. Discuss your concern
Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish and what’s proving difficult. We discuss fit and agree the scope, fee, schedule, and participation arrangements before you commit.
2. Define the inquiry together
A kick-off conversation helps clarify the priority, a recent example, and the decision you need to inform. ISG prepares a short summary for your confirmation and identifies the information most useful to the Review.
3. Bring together relevant information
We examine your responses to a brief assessment alongside selected existing records and perspectives from people involved in the work. We explain what would be useful; you don’t need to prepare a presentation or assemble a large document pack.
We will confirm participation arrangements with you and collect additional perspectives directly. Short clarifications may be requested where an uncertainty could materially affect the findings.
4. Consider the findings and next steps
We bring the information together, explain what it supports and what remains uncertain, and discuss the recommendations with you. You decide which actions to take forward.
