Rickter uses precise, consistent and non-leading dialogue through Five Conversations: Connecting, Discovery, Destination, Commitment and Movement. Together, the conversations give each interaction a clear purpose and sequence while allowing the individual’s articulation to shape its content.
The Life Board provides a shared visual environment for the conversation. Track Pins placed at selected Waypoints anchor each numerical position to the individual’s articulation across thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviour and language.
Frames of Reference organise the Life Board around connected themes, questions and definitions. They configure the enquiry around the programme’s purpose and context while providing consistency across individuals, practitioners and review conversations.
The Centreline Process connects the Question and Definition, Baseline and Meaning, Desired State and Meaning, Commitment, Evidence Marker and Review. Mainline and Sideline pathways allow relevant issues to be explored without losing the direction of the conversation.
The Desired State provides a destination defined by the individual rather than a prescribed outcome. The Action Button captures their chosen commitment, while the Evidence Button identifies how movement may be recognised and records the evidence established during review.
The New Now Review establishes Present State and what has or has not moved. Baseline, Desired State and Present State combine with meaning, commitment and review to create Movement Evidence, which the Impact Management System collates for learning, analysis and measurement reporting.
Rickter begins with the individual’s own Frame of Reference, priorities and lived experience. This produces evidence that is personally relevant, increases engagement and reduces the risk of measuring outcomes that do not reflect what matters to the individual.
Every position is connected to the individual’s explanation of what it means. This enables practitioners and organisations to interpret movement accurately, distinguish apparently similar scores and understand the experience behind the numerical evidence.
The individual identifies their Desired State and defines what being there would mean. This strengthens ownership, creates a meaningful direction for action and prevents success from being restricted to a single externally determined destination.
Rickter recognises progression, stability, disruption, reconsideration and changed priorities as meaningful movement. This gives organisations a more accurate picture of change and prevents higher or lower numbers from being interpreted without understanding their context.
The New Now Review establishes what the individual’s position means today. This reveals changes in awareness, expectations and priorities that a repeated score may not show, providing a deeper explanation of what has moved and what matters next.
Baseline position, personal meaning, Desired State, commitment and review remain connected within one evidence pathway. This creates traceable Movement Evidence that strengthens practice decisions, programme learning, reporting credibility and accountability to commissioners and funders.
Individuals can speak, write, point, select, draw, use communication support, request different wording, pause or return. This broadens meaningful participation, reduces communication-related bias and enables more people to retain authorship of their evidence.
Frames of Reference can be configured for different populations, programmes and delivery environments while the Five Conversations and measurement architecture remain consistent. This gives organisations contextual relevance, implementation flexibility and a reliable method that can expand across services.
Individuals gain awareness and ownership, practitioners gain evidence-informed insight, and organisations gain appropriately de-identified Movement Intelligence. This creates one connected evidence system that supports personal action, service improvement and strategic decision-making.
Rickter has evolved through more than three decades of application with individuals, practitioners and organisations. This practice-informed development has created a mature method shaped by real conversations, varied delivery environments and the practical requirements of measuring meaningful human movement.
Rickter integrates lived-experience enquiry, personal meaning-making, metacognitive awareness, self-determination, future orientation and goal commitment within the Five Conversations. These principles operate together as one coherent process, giving practitioners depth and flexibility without forcing every person through a single theory of change.
The Five Conversations connect Baseline, personal meaning, Desired State, resources, commitment and New Now Review through a consistent sequence. This architecture makes the method repeatable, keeps the evidence connected and clarifies how structured conversation becomes measurable human movement.
Rickter works alongside clinical, diagnostic, statutory, risk and standardised measures by contributing evidence of the individual’s experience of movement. Organisations gain a fuller evidence picture while each specialist measure continues to fulfil the purpose for which it was designed.
Practitioners experience the method, complete structured learning and demonstrate their ability through assessed application. Authorisation, continuing development and professional support strengthen practitioner confidence, protect individual ownership and promote consistent delivery across organisations and programmes.
Method fidelity is supported through programme configuration, practitioner resources, supervision, practice review, technical guidance and quality assurance. This protects the essential Rickter process while enabling organisations to embed and expand delivery across different teams, services and operational environments.
Each review connects to the individual’s earlier position, personal meaning, Desired State and chosen commitment. This creates a transparent evidence pathway that supports professional reflection, explains movement over time and strengthens the credibility of programme learning and organisational reporting.
Appropriately de-identified Movement Evidence can reveal patterns across individuals, practitioners, reviews and programmes while personal meaning remains protected. Organisations gain intelligence for improving delivery, understanding contribution and supporting decisions without converting individual experience into unsupported judgement or attribution.
Rickter continues to develop through practitioner learning, neuroinclusive practice, digital delivery, research collaboration and international implementation. This continuing advancement keeps the method responsive to emerging knowledge, different communication needs and the changing expectations placed upon person-led measurement.
The Rickter Scale enables the individual to translate an internal, subjective experience into a visible point of reference. Defined endpoints provide consistency without presenting the number as an objective judgement or a complete account of the individual’s experience.
Choosing a position requires the individual to pause, consider their experience and make a decision. Because the position is established by them rather than assigned by a practitioner, it creates a personal reference point that can be articulated, explored and revisited.
The same number can mean something entirely different to two people—or to the same person at different times. Rickter records the individual’s explanation alongside the position, ensuring that measurement remains connected to lived meaning, context and personal context and circumstance.
The Desired State makes the difference the individual would like to experience visible and measurable. It establishes personally meaningful direction without treating the space between Baseline and Desired State as a deficit, performance gap or target imposed by another person.
The same scale and question are revisited during the New Now Review. Present State can show upward, downward or unchanged numerical movement, while the individual’s articulation reveals how meaning, circumstances and priorities may also have changed since the earlier conversation.
When position is combined with meaning, commitment and review, measurement becomes Movement Evidence. Numerical data can support comparison and reporting while the individual’s account remains essential to understanding what moved and what may have contributed to that movement over time.
Every position, meaning, Desired State, commitment and account of movement belongs to the individual. The practitioner holds the structure and records the process without interpreting on their behalf.
Access needs, communication preferences, pace and participation options are considered before personal disclosure is expected. Difficulty accessing the conversation is never treated as unwillingness to participate.
Individuals can choose what they explore, rename a theme, defer a question, skip an area, pause or stop. Participation does not remove their right to make decisions.
A numerical position cannot explain itself. Its value comes from the individual’s articulation, which remains connected to the measurement throughout the conversation, commitment and review.
Practitioners approach every response with curiosity and respect. They do not diagnose, label, challenge ownership or decide what a position, answer or movement should mean.
Emotional, sensory and relational readiness are respected throughout. Pace, pauses and appropriate grounding take priority when continuing could undermine safety, regulation or meaningful participation.
The protected architecture and sequence of the Rickter method remain consistent. Communication, access and expression can be adapted around the individual without changing the method’s essential components.
Positions and articulation are recorded accurately, proportionately and securely. Personal information is protected, and conclusions are not extended beyond what the evidence can genuinely support.
The original Baseline and earlier meanings remain part of the evidence trail. Each New Now Review adds learning that can inform the individual’s next step and the practitioner’s response.
If you would like to explore whether Rickter is appropriate for your people, programmes or measurement requirements, arrange a free initial consultation with our team. We can discuss your context, intended use, practitioner requirements and the most appropriate route towards training, configuration and implementation.
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