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[Music] hi everybody my name is ronnie benjarian and i'm a consultant here at education elements i'm a former math teacher turned data scientist turned consultant and i work with school districts across the us on personalized learning community engagement and data informed strategies in this pathway i want to talk to you about innovative ways to design and launch your strategic plan when we ask districts to describe their strategic plans sometimes we hear things like boring outdated or sitting dusty on a shelf at ee we believe that the design and planning process is as important if not more important than the final document that you create and so in this first video we're going to discuss ways that you can innovate in the planning and the launch of your district's strategic plan how do we design the schools of the future today we must be innovative in our approach otherwise we'd be designing the same systems and structures that we have all over again once you've engaged in the first part of the process you should have a wealth of data that emerges from surveys empathy interviews and family focus groups as well as things like state test scores and graduation rates next assemble your steering team and start to look for trends in the data by looking at cross-sections of different types of data as well as cross-sections of your stakeholder groups here are some example trends that you might find from reviewing these cross-sections there are not enough structures to support community wellness and student mental health there's likely to be substantial growth in the number of school-aged children in the next five years there should be a focus on maintaining a high level of academic programs there is a desire for additional supports for struggling learners step two start to think about articulating why the trends are happening and how it matters ask yourself and your teens why why is this trend happening how how does this trend matter what what questions arise from the strength step three ideate and wildly brainstorm human-centered design thinking is a practice from the design firm ideo as well as the stanford school of design and that encourages you at this point to ideate and wildly brainstorm as many ideas as possible which can be challenging for a lot of us ann manning at the harvard extension school believes that at this point you should be clear to your team when you're engaging with divergent thinking or convergent thinking divergent thinking is the process of brainstorming and coming up with new ideas whereas convergent thinking is the process of reflecting on those ideas and manning challenges us to create space and spend at least some time just coming up with ideas without judging them and separating that process from the process of evaluating them one way you might encourage divergent thinking on your teams is to frame the challenges that arise from your trends as how might we questions this invites your stakeholders to take a seat at the table roll up their sleeves and begin to think of solutions collaboratively another benefit of this how might we framing is that you're inviting multiple solutions in fact any solution that could possibly solve the problem as manning states it's not yet time to evaluate uh whether the solution is feasible or not these are the challenges that we found in our data there are not enough structures to support community wellness and student mental health there is likely to be substantial growth on the number of school-aged children in the next five years there should be a focus on maintaining a high level of academic programs there is a desire for additional supports for struggling learners taking these challenges and reframing them as how might we questions yields how might we create structures to support community wellness and student mental health how might we ensure we have space and resources available for the rising number of school-aged children in the next five years how might we maintain a high level of academic programs how might we provide additional supports for struggling learners hopefully at this point you have your how might we questions and you've encouraged the wild brainstorming from your community and your teams and you have an overwhelming number of ideas with all of that in mind my question for you is this how will you implement divergent thinking in your planning process [Music] hi i'm gabby hewitt from education elements i'm an associate partner helping school districts create more responsive systems and equitable experiences for their teams and students today i'd like to share an activity that's not only important to the strategic planning process but can help you prioritize during any large and complex projects about a year ago my family moved into our forever home right outside of the city of pittsburgh the house checked off almost all of our boxes but we knew if we truly wanted to make it our own there were a few areas that we wanted to renovate so minutes after moving in we did what any couple who watches way too much hgtv does we started making our list of renovation projects first on my husband's list converting our double garage into a fully functioning basement first on my list updating our 90s style kitchen to make it more modern although i'm not the handy partner in our relationship i immediately stated that the kitchen should take priority my husband on the other hand had other ideas with two competing priorities we needed to align on where to begin with our renovations a district writing a new strategic plan is not unlike a family undergoing a renovation project there are some structural areas that are worthy of celebration but there are always going to be areas that are in need of improvement there are also different stakeholders who have competing ideas for what could be or should be improved a recent survey of nearly 2 000 executives shared this startling statistic when it comes to strategic priorities nearly 70 percent are destined for failure that's seven out of ten a prioritization matrix is one way to ensure that your initiatives or your projects are more likely to succeed to get started consider this four-step framework first make a list of all your strategic priority focus areas it's helpful to have some sticky notes for this step consider having a small team comprised of teachers administrators and district level leaders to start with or you can use an existing strategic planning team that fits this criteria ask your team to list initiatives that align to your strategic priorities one per sticky note for removability later in my own home renovation project our list was relatively short one sticky note for the kitchen one for the basement second come to a group definition for the term impact how your team defines impact depends a lot on context for a home improvement project one might note that a kitchen is a high traffic area therefore having high impact value whereas a basement is mostly a seasonal room that's bookended by the start and end of football season just as impact and a home improvement project is contextual so will your team's definition of impact be for a strategic plan we encourage you to consider your team's definition of impact using one some or all of the following criteria strategic alignment how will this initiative support a variety of strategic priorities student impact how might this initiative directly drive outcomes for your students return on investment how might this initiative provide benefits beyond those anticipated flexibility are we able to adjust course with new information remember your team doesn't have to use all this criteria but once you have your definition of impact you can then take your sticky notes and move them along a vertical axis from targeted impact to more broad impact third as a group define what ease means for your district our definition of impact can vary widely depending on our own knowledge skills and experience as a homeowner i imagined renovating an existing kitchen would be so much easier than building a brand new basement from a garage my husband on the other hand believed the basement renovation to be easier i defined ease by efficiency what would take less time to complete as a true do-it-yourself guy he defined ease by what he could do himself without having to hire external help similar to defining impact a strategic planning team may decide to use one some or all of the following criteria to define ease feasibility how do our existing structures support this initiative risk how certain are we in our ability to implement this initiative resource availability and support does our staff already have the existing capabilities to implement this initiative cost how will this initiative impact our bottom line and can we absorb any budget projections once you've aligned on your team's definition of ease take those same sticky notes that you moved vertically and transition them on a horizontal axis from easy to implement to much more difficult finally select your initiatives to implement once you've moved your sticky notes you'll notice that you've plotted all of your initiatives into four different quadrants the first quadrant we would label easier and has an overall broad impact these initiatives are high priority and they are relatively easy to implement when it comes to implementing your strategic plan this is your starting sweet spot our team recommends that you select two to three initiatives from this quadrant to begin with the second quadrant is what we call difficult but also has broad impact these are your bold ideas in addition to the sweet spot some districts might suggest selecting one to two initiatives from this quadrant taking initiatives from this category can help to really embody the change that you seek easy and worth it for a targeted group these ideas are likely easy to implement within the current context of your district and they have targeted impact on a select group of stakeholders consider whether they need to be included in your strategic plan or whether they can be left up to other decision makers such as school or grade level teams and finally the last quadrant we would label difficult but certainly worth it for a targeted group within your district these initiatives impact a smaller more targeted group of stakeholders so they may not be far-reaching but they are important initiatives given specialized needs similar to the easy and targeted quadrant you may want to leave these initiatives to a smaller group of decision makers and you can let those groups such as school or grade level teams lead decisions on that particular initiative now that you have your prioritization matrix your strategic planning team can lead implementation with the knowledge that you have a manageable and high impact list of priorities without this matrix your team might have been attempted to fix all the things right away but as i am learning with our home improvement journey the more successful route to implementation is to start with a few manageable and feasible projects first it may mean that my kitchen is still not renovated and while our basement is complete it's getting some new additions we can always add new priorities along the way to add to our vision of [Music] transformation [Music] hello my name is alan bryce balon and i'm a design principal with education elements i'll be walking you through some considerations to take in communicating your plan before it's ready for launch i'd like to start by sharing a story about my wedding this past june my partner and i decided to get married on the rooftop of our apartment building after having to cancel our cancun destination wedding plans due to the pandemic we had our budget so that we could secure a caterer and photographer and we also came up with a schedule that would make sure everything flowed beautifully from start to finish when the day came my partner walked down the aisle we exchanged our vials and our rings and we heard guests share stories about how they met us and what it meant for them to witness two people coming together to build a shared life but as we heard these beautiful stories we realized that our caterer must have been downstairs trying to enter the building neither of us had our phones on us but we noticed that the time we scheduled for her to arrive had already passed we also saw our photographer struggling to find the right spots to take photos due to the way we set up our socially distanced seating chart in that moment it hit us that even though we had a solid plan we never communicated any of the small details with our vendors her maid of honor my best man or anyone else who could have helped i know this sounds like a nightmare but everything actually worked out i share this story to highlight the importance of communicating your strategic plan in order to make sure that you prevent communication lapses from impacting your success so what are some potential pitfalls that might surface when you fail to communicate effectively here's some data that reveals some of those potential effects according to a study completed by the project management institute 56 of the portion of project budgets that deal with mitigating risk is attributed to ineffective communication they also found that high performing organizations create formal communications plans for nearly twice as many projects as their lower performing counterparts so having a plan for how you communicate is also a success factor lastly ineffective communication led to project failure one third of the time so i think the challenge here is clear but what are some steps you can take to make sure you're communicating your plan effectively you want to be clear on four key factors to an effective communication plan and they include your key messages and tactics your messengers your messaging opportunities and your bottom line as i go through the essential questions for each of these factors you'll see possible responses on the right for key messages and tactics your essential question might be how are we tailoring our plan's overall message to each audience are you using social media email newsletters or our website where are you storing this information so that it continues to be accessible after you've made contact for messengers you're asking who are the best messengers for any given message and or audience when thinking about your opportunities to actually share a message you should ask when might we share this message and how often should we communicate to provide our community with updates and lastly in thinking about the bottom line of your communication at the end of the day what do we hope each audience will take away from our effective communication when you communicate effectively you activate effective project leadership this means that you've been able to communicate your desired vision and process effectively in order to guide and motivate team members stakeholders and clients you also satisfy your community members effectively communicating all aspects of your plan will also mean that your community will be satisfied with the process and the results being transparent will help your community understand if some targets aren't met because they were always in the loop and they may even be able to help you track why some misses occurred and this can help you ensure success moving forward finally you'll witness engage team members in a solid project culture communicating effectively can also help to establish a better project culture that will serve you in the planning of future initiatives large or small before you launch and monitor your strategic plan be sure to take into account the following considerations for your planning conversations be concise keep words at a minimum in your storytelling with the visuals at the forefront to avoid losing people before you have them define your terms be clear about the terms you're using and why you're using them to avoid confusion never lose sight of the future state and the goals you've identified in your plan as much as possible always tie your communications back to those goals also remember that you aren't starting with a clean slate you may already have some if not all of the tools at your disposal to communicate effectively combine these tools with any new strategies you decide to employ to maximize impact and lastly keep in mind how you are not only informing your community but also inspiring and modeling action to close out i'd like to leave you with this question what impact do you wish effective communication will have on your community and the success of your [Music] plan [Music] thanks so much for watching for more content from education elements be sure to check out our website and follow us on twitter and if you enjoyed this content make sure you like this video and subscribe to this channel [Music]