There is no clean boundary between design and implementation.

You are sensing from the desk review, implementing from the moment you enter the landscape, and redesigning from the moment the first foment generates a response.

One continuous processThe proposal may separate phases, but real landscape work overlaps, loops back and changes direction.

Eight operational stepsThe sequence makes the work navigable without pretending that complexity is linear.

One persistent exit questionWhat would need to be true for the system to sustain its new heading without the intervention?

Explore the eight steps ↓

The sequence is recursive.For proposals, Steps 1–6 can be described as design and Steps 7–8 as implementation. In practice, implementation begins at Step 3.

Glimpse

Three sentences change the whole method.

You are sensing from the desk review.

Scoping, media scans and previous evaluations already begin to shape the provisional read of the system.

You are implementing when you enter.

Presence, questions, funding and alliances alter expectations and relationships before any formal activity begins.

You are redesigning after response.

The first system reaction creates new evidence. The next decision should be based on that evidence, not defended against it.

Grasp

Eight steps make the work navigable.

Select a step. Each has a purpose, a minimum output and a route into the deeper Playbook concepts.

Sensing runs across every step.Keep asking: who is doing what, when, where, why, how – and to whom?

Step 1

Scope your landscape

Define where you will work and why – geographically and in terms of the system you are entering.

Minimum output
A provisional boundary, landscape concern, early actor and strand hypotheses, and an explicit list of what is not yet known.

Deepen through: Landscape · Systems · Stakeholders

Explore

The proposal sequence and the real process are not the same thing.

For proposal purposes

Describe a clear sequence, outputs, responsibilities, decision points and resources. Steps 1–6 can be presented as design; Steps 7–8 as implementation.

In the landscape

Expect overlap, loops and return. New evidence may change the boundary, team, heading, opportunity point or foment. Document the reasoning rather than hiding the revision.

Adaptivity is not unstructured change.
Keep legal, fiduciary, safeguard and public-purpose commitments fixed. Revise propositions, methods and activities through an explicit decision process.

What are we learning?Update the maps and proposition log whenever evidence changes the team’s read.

What changes next?State which activity, relationship, resource or assumption should now be altered.

Who authorizes the change?Define decision rights, thresholds and change-control arrangements before they are needed.

What must endure?Carry the exit question from the beginning, not as a final workshop at project closure.

The anchoring question

Who is doing what, when, where, why, how – and to whom?

The final phrase distinguishes a description of behaviour from a reading of regulation. It asks whose practices are affected, constrained, enabled or redirected by the action.

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Make assumptions visible

Turn “we know” into provisional statements that can be tested against what the landscape does.

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Use tight feedback loops

Shorten the time between action, observation, sensemaking and the next decision.

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Amplify what works

Scale by extending relations, stabilizing systems and supporting successful ripples – not by copying a master plan.

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Build an institutional home

Embed the functions, authority, capability and resources that must continue without the intervention.