The group begins in Identity. It conducts an environmental scan and assembles a model that represents the behavioral modes and evolution of the environment. This model is the product of the Identity stage of the creative process. For it to be truly useful it must pass the criteria of the Appropriate Response. The team asks itself the following questions:

Efficacy: does the environmental model embody the power to generate an understanding of the forces at work and our position relative to these forces?

Scope: does the environmental model have enough breadth to serve as a useful tool? Does it cover the necessary variables and patterns?

Nature: do the pieces of the model fit together and support one another, or are there gaps? Are some portions of the model strategic and others philosophical, creating a mismatch in performance and meaning? Is the model free of "impossible physics", or behaviors that are beyond the envelope of sustainable performance of the systems it is modeling?

Anticipatory: Can the model be used to anticipate future events? If the model is rolled back to some past time, can it predict the present? Does it make useful predictions as well as some surprising ones?

Self-Correcting: When the model is "run" does it rapidly careen out of control, or are there feedback loops built in that allow a tug and pull between homeostasis, or balance, and growth or evolutionary pressures embodied in positive feedback loops?

Sustainable: Is the model resilient under a variety of different inputs? Can the model reproduce itself (be so elegant and attractive that people will be drawn to use it)?