The 6-Step Delivery Process in RIDE™

Higher ed marketing strategies rarely fail due to a lack of vision. They fail because they lack execution. More often than not, a gap emerges between the broad initiatives defined in a Strategy and the daily actions and activities required to achieve them.

This disconnect is often made worse by silos between departments, where strategic context is lost as a strategy moves from high-level planners to day-to-day execution teams. Without a structured translation layer, strategic focus often breaks down into confusion, leading to random, ad hoc tasks rather than coordinated execution.

To facilitate the translation from high-level strategy to day-to-day operations, we propose a 6-step delivery process designed for marketing directors and managers:

1. Define

Before tasks are defined, the first step is to identify the main initiatives from research and strategy. All initiatives for this planning cycle are collected in one place, given a short, consistent name, and described in a single sentence that explains the expected result.

This gives the whole plan sharp focus and serves as the anchor for later decisions about tasks, owners, and timing.

Key questions to answer:

• What are the five to ten initiatives that really matter for this planning cycle?
• Which audience and offer does each initiative support?
• What is the expected result when each initiative is successfully delivered?

Once initiatives are listed and named, each one must be explicitly tied back to how students discover and evaluate information. In the Delivery Workbook, every initiative must be tagged with:

• Its Discovery Journey stage (e.g., Discovery / Shortlist / Decision),
• Its IDO™ pillar (Get Found / Get Trusted / Get Chosen), and
• Its primary Information Discovery channels (e.g., search, AI search, social, third-party aggregators, email, website, events, agents, CRM, etc.).

This mapping keeps execution anchored to where and how students actually make decisions, and allows leaders to see at a glance whether the planned work is balanced across Journey stages and IDO™ pillars or clustered in the wrong places.

To do this, colleges and universities need an accountability and work management system. When multiple teams, departments, and external partners are involved, activity can easily become fragmented.

An explicit system for ownership, planning, and follow-up helps teams stay aligned, reduces duplication, and keeps everyone aware of what is happening, when, and why. This is where Deliver defines who does what, when work is expected, and how progress is monitored.

Organizations can use any project management tool to support this phase. To make it easier to get started, the IDO™ Framework includes a free Delivery Workbook built on Google Sheets.

The Workbook brings together:

• Initiatives – Lists each initiative with its audience, offer, Journey stage, IDO™ pillar, channels, owner, timing, and status.
• Tasks & Timeline – Breaks initiatives into tasks with owners, dependencies, dates, and current status.
• 6Ms & Resources – Records the 6Ms for each initiative (Men, Money, Minutes, Materials, Machines, Management) plus simple risk flags and notes.
• RIDE Log – Captures key answers from each Delivery Check-in and Evaluate Session for every initiative over time.

Each initiative in the Workbook should include at least:

• Initiative Name – Short label used consistently in meetings and reports.
• Initiative Description – A short description of this initiative in plain language.
• Definition of Done – How the initiative will look when it is completed.
• Audience – Primary audience segment.
• Offer – Program, portfolio, or proposition supported.
• Stage – Discovery / Shortlist / Decision (choose one primary stage).
• IDO™ pillar – Get Found / Get Trusted / Get Chosen (choose the main pillar).
• Channels – Main channels where this initiative will be executed.
• Priority – E.g., must-do / should-do / could-do for this cycle.
  

Step 1 is complete only when these fields have been populated for every initiative. At that point, the team moves to the next phase, “Assess,” where all current resources are assessed against 6Ms.

Once all initiatives are listed and tagged, each one is translated into small pieces of work that a person or a group can complete. A good task is clear, can be finished in days or weeks, and has a visible outcome when it is done. Important and near-term initiatives receive more detailed tasks.

The result is a practical list of work that shows exactly what needs to happen to deliver that initiative.

2. Assess (the 6Ms Audit)

Once initiatives and tasks are defined, the next step is to test the plan against the resources and skills that are actually available. 

Most marketers assess their resources focusing on three basics: people, budget, and time, as captured in PR Smith’s SOSTAC® model as the 3Ms (Men, Money, Minutes). While these remain valid, they are insufficient to succeed in today’s discovery ecosystem.

In this ecosystem, plans rarely fail solely because nobody thought about staff or budget. They fail because the information feeding those channels is inconsistent, the systems that should publish that information fail to connect, or there is no clear governance to keep everything aligned over time.

Even when the classic 3Ms are in place, the complex discovery experience can still be fragmented and difficult to manage.

To overcome this challenge, the IDO™ Framework expands the traditional 3Ms from the SOSTAC® framework into a 6M model that bridges classic planning with the specific demands of the discovery ecosystem.

The Traditional 3Ms (SOSTAC®):

• Men (People & Skills) – The human capacity required to execute.
  This includes the internal team, external agencies, and the specific skills needed for the work. Planning this resource means ensuring you have not just “bodies in seats,” but the right capabilities available at the right time.
  
• Money (Budget) – The financial investment required.
  This covers media spend, production costs, technology fees, and agency retainers. Planning this resource means validating that the budget is allocated to the channels that actually drive influence, rather than just legacy line items.
  
• Minutes (Time) – The timeline and bandwidth required.
  This captures the delivery schedule and the time required for results to materialize. Planning this resource means being realistic about how long high-quality discovery work takes to produce and how long it takes to gain traction in algorithms.

The IDO™ 3Ms:

• Materials (Information) – the information and proof the organization will rely on in discovery.
  Materials must cover the core facts, explanations, outcomes, and narratives, and these must be accurate and consistent wherever they appear.
  
  Treating Materials as a distinct resource means defining, consolidating, and maintaining this body of information so that every channel and team draws from the same base. This reduces contradictions, limits rework, and ensures discovery activity is built on a stable, shared foundation.
  
• Machines (Systems) – the systems and tools that publish and track that information.
  Machines are the digital platforms used to put content in front of audiences, connect data between systems, and measure what happens. Planning Machines as a resource means aligning tools and integrations so that changes can be rolled out reliably and their impact measured.
  
• Management (Governance) – The policies, protocols, playbooks, and guides for how work is done. Management is the set of agreed rules, principles, and processes that define how information is created, approved, and maintained in the discovery ecosystem.
  
  Treating Management as a resource means documenting and enforcing these expectations across all stakeholders, ensuring that every activity follows a single, unified standard that builds cumulative trust.

How to run the 6M Audit in this step?

For each initiative and major task, do an estimation by asking the following questions:

• Do we have the right people to execute on this? (Men)
  • Which tasks ask people to do something new or unfamiliar?
  • What skills or knowledge are missing for these tasks?
  • What training, coaching, or written guides will fill those gaps?
• How many hours or days of work are needed from each role? (Men and Minutes)
• How much money is needed (for content, media, tools, agencies)? (Money)
• Which systems or tools are required? (Machines)
• Which core narrative and facts must be documented or updated? (Materials)
• Which policies, guides, workflows, or approvals are needed to keep this work aligned over time? (Management)

These estimates and checks are then compared to what the institution can actually support.

• Weekly or monthly workload per person is checked against what they can realistically handle.
• Planned spend is checked against the budget.
• System capacity, data connections, and governance processes are checked against what actually exists today.

If there is a gap in any of the 6Ms, the plan is adjusted before execution starts. This can mean reducing the scope of an initiative, pushing some tasks to a later period, improving or integrating systems, tightening governance, or dropping lower-value work.

Whenever there are gaps in skills or the team’s capabilities, the team must plan to attend training sessions and reference materials by adding them as specific tasks in the plan delivery.

The goal is to develop a plan that can be delivered with the people, budget, information, systems, and governance the organization actually has or can develop in a timely manner, rather than planning to deliver work that the organization can not deliver.

After this step, the remaining initiatives are those the team feels comfortable moving forward with.

3. Assign

Once initiatives and tasks have been defined and assessed, this step connects each piece of work to the people involved. Each initiative has one person who is responsible for the result. Under each initiative, every task has a named owner who ensures it moves from start to finish.

For the given tasks, the people who help and those who must be kept informed are also noted. Decision rights are written down so owners know which decisions they can make on their own and when they need to involve others. This keeps work from sitting in a grey area between teams.

Key questions to answer:

• Who owns each initiative?
• Who owns each task in daily work?
• Which team members help with this task?
• Who needs to be kept informed because their work depends on this?

4. Schedule

Once owners are known, this step establishes dates and the order of the work. For each initiative, a target date is set for when the first results should appear. Then each task gets:

• a planned start date
• a planned end date or week
• a place in the sequence of work

Tasks that must happen first are clearly marked, and those that can run in parallel are grouped together. Near-term tasks are mapped to exact weeks or specific dates. Work that is further out is mapped to months or quarters.

Dependencies between tasks are also made clear. For example, “design homepage banner” depends on “finalize copy” and cannot start until it is complete. These links are written directly into the plan (for example, with a “depends on” column or simple notes) so teams can see where one delay will affect other work.

The result is a simple schedule that makes it easy to see what is being worked on now, what comes next, and what is waiting on something else.

Key questions to answer:

• When should this initiative start showing its first results?
• Which tasks must finish before others can begin?
• Which fixed dates or events (intakes, open days, campaigns) must be considered?
• Which tasks can move around if priorities, time, or people change?

5. Deliver

Once work has been defined, assessed, assigned, and scheduled, the focus shifts to delivering the work. In this step, initiatives move from planning to active execution. Tasks that were in a planned state in the Delivery Workbook are moved to active, and day-to-day work begins.

Owners and teams now carry out the agreed tasks. They launch and optimise campaigns, publish and update content, adjust pages and flows, send emails, refine paid activity, and make changes in systems and processes. The Delivery Workbook serves as the single place to track active tasks and update status.

The aim of this step is to ensure the work chosen and sized in earlier steps is actually shipped. Each update in this step keeps the plan and the real work aligned, so that later evaluation can see what was really done for each initiative

6. Review

The Review step keeps the Delivery Plan up to date as work progresses across delivery cycles. As initiatives move forward, timelines shift, effort varies, and early signals begin to appear.

This phase provides regular sessions to look at that reality and adjust the plan so delivery stays aligned with current priorities and available capacity.

It turns the team’s learning from delivery into concrete decisions about what should continue, change, and stop in the next delivery cycle. This phase works within the agreed Information Discovery Strategy and does not revisit discovery or strategic direction.

This is supported by two recurring sessions that serve different roles in the Delivery Cycle. 

• Delivery Check-In reviews the tasks worked on during the last week or two to confirm progress, identify bottlenecks, and agree on what will be worked on next. It updates status and support needs for initiatives currently in progress, including any 6Ms issues.
  
  When an initiative is completed or put on hold, the team moves to the next initiative in the plan owner’s approved order.
  
  No initiatives are added, removed, or re-ranked. Updates are recorded in the Delivery Workbook, including current status, near-term focus, support needed, and actions for the next period.
  
  
• The Delivery Review assesses progress in implementing the strategy over the last month. It reviews performance through the Discovery Scorecard and supporting analytics, including CRM, and summarises results through a Discovery Performance Report.
  
  Based on this view, the team makes initiative-level decisions for the next month within the current Information Discovery Strategy, deciding what to continue, change, pause, or stop. New initiatives are captured as proposals, and tracking issues are recorded as follow-up actions in the Delivery Workbook

Delivery Check-In

In a regular cadence, weekly or bi-weekly, the team reviews the tasks worked on during the last period. The goal is to understand what has been completed, what is still in progress, what is slowing work down, and what needs support.

The team works from an initiative list that has already been agreed and ordered by the plan owner. When all tasks for an initiative are completed, or the initiative is put on hold, the team moves to the next initiative on that list. The check-in does not add, remove, or reorder initiatives.

All updates are recorded directly in the Delivery Workbook.

Purpose

Review task progress for active initiatives, agree on what will be worked on before the next check-in, and identify any support needed.

Scope

Tasks and active initiatives in the current Delivery Cycle.

Participants

People directly involved in delivering the current work, including the owner of the Delivery Plan for this cycle, and those working on active initiatives.

Format

Can be run as a short virtual meeting, an in-person huddle, or a structured asynchronous update. Everyone works from the same Delivery Workbook view.

Duration

Typically 15–30 minutes.

Inputs

• Delivery Workbook filtered to active initiatives and tasks.
• Notes on any known 6Ms constraints affecting delivery.

Key questions

• Where is this initiative now?
• What are we working on before the next check-in?
• Do we need any support to keep this moving?

Outputs

• Updated task and initiative status in the Delivery Workbook.
• Clear short-term focus for each active initiative.
• A short list of support actions and follow-ups.

Delivery Review

A deeper session held once a month that looks at how initiatives progressed over the last month and sets the Delivery Plan for the next one.

This session reviews initiatives at a high level and uses performance information to decide what should continue, change, pause, or stop. It also provides management with a clear view of results through a Discovery Performance Report. Tasks are not discussed in this session.

Purpose

Review progress over the last month and decide how to adjust the Delivery Plan for the next month.

Scope

Initiatives in the Delivery Plan.

Participants

Those accountable for the overall Delivery Plan, owners of major initiatives, and those responsible for performance and insight.

Format

Preparation can be done asynchronously in the Delivery Workbook. Because initiative decisions are made in this session, a virtual or in-person meeting is recommended. All decisions are recorded directly in the Delivery Workbook.

Duration

Typically 60–90 minutes, depending on the number of initiatives.

Inputs

• Initiative-level view from the Delivery Workbook, including the Discovery Journey stage and IDO pillar.
• Monthly performance view from the scorecard and relevant analytics platforms, including CRM.
• Summary of progress, early performance signals where available, student feedback where available, and internal observations.
• Any notable changes in 6Ms affecting delivery.

Key questions

• Should this initiative continue next month?
• Does this initiative need to change to improve results?
• Should this initiative pause or stop?
• Are there any new initiatives that should be captured as proposals

Outputs

• Decisions for each initiative to continue, change, pause, or stop.
• Updated Delivery Plan recorded in the Delivery Workbook.
• New initiatives captured as proposals for term review.
• Clear focus for the next month, linked to the Discovery Journey and IDO pillars.