As part of the Integrated Family Wealth Management initiative, the Ultra High Net Worth Institute has analyzed the services required to support the needs of families in the Ten Domains of Family Wealth. Within each of the nine content domains of the model, service delivery may be organized into three common phases in a cyclical fashion:

Phase 1: Assessment and Goal Setting. In initial stages of service, providers typically assess what may be needed for the client family in the areas under consideration. They interview the family and its other advisors to learn the history of the family, its relevant issues in various domains, what may have already been done, and the strengths and challenges the family may have which impact service design and implementation. This discovery process may also review factors or services needed from other domains and the elements that may impact the success of solutions. Discovery and assessment then lead to setting goals with the client, potentially obtaining specialist providers for some of the necessary services, and moving to the next phase of implementing the actual service delivery.

Phase 2: Strategic Design, Setup, and Implementation. The second phase typically involves expert design and setup of the services requested or required in the domain of interest. Operational factors will be taken into account, systems or structures created, and processes and procedures implemented. This phase is likely to involve collaboration with internal or external advisors as well as the client family in crafting solutions. 

Phase 3: Monitoring and Adjustment. When new systems or procedures are largely in place, the focus shifts to ongoing management, monitoring, and tactical adjustment of the system. Phase three optimally includes education of the family in the principles and/or operations of its new systems, collaboration with the client in oversight and maintenance of what has been instituted, and adaptation of systems over time as the family changes or new circumstances are taken into account.  Phase three also periodically involves the decision to engage in a major re-evaluation and return to a fresh phase one analysis and goal-setting process where major strategic overhaul of systems may be necessary or advisable.

Integrated Family Wealth Services: The Assessment, Implementation, and Monitoring (AIM) Framework also highlights the advanced service delivery skills and systems necessary for integrated family wealth management solutions. The family office or advisory team serving as an integrator hub will set goals, implement solutions, and monitor a family’s systems over long periods of time to ensure excellent services, over and above the domain-specific services that may be implemented. It is these higher-quality skills and services – part of the Family-Advisory Relationships domain – that distinguish the capacity for integration by a firm.