What’s measured matters. So why, in the world of school-based initiatives, isn’t measuring our efforts and impact the regular and requisite element of practice it should be?
I’ve seen amazing programs over the course of my initiative adventures. And I’ve evaluated a fair number that proved to be amazing because of a dedication to metrics and continuous improvement over time. They were fortunate to have the support to sustain and reach the point of predictable results. But waiting for a program to be fully up, running, and producing results can take too long to optimize opportunities for sustaining support, demonstrating impact, and—ultimately, changing the lives of those involved.
I’d like to share a proposition for the coming school year: I invite you to commit to the pursuit of proving initiative impact. When I say impact, I’m describing far more than the end result.
Successful initiatives are carefully predicted on demonstrated needs, have implementation plans that can be tracked and measured, and commit to the use of data every step of the way.
This approach enables us to hone our focus and monitor our implementation progress. Plus, we can correct our course when and where necessary. All this adds up to increasing the chance that we realize the predictable outcomes we envisioned and dedicated our resources to achieve.
If the end is not the time to begin measuring impact, where do we start?
In my book, Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis: 24 Go-to Strategies, I outline and offer resources to address six types of initiative crisis. The “lack of data” crisis is one I’ve stumbled upon all too often when I’m called in by schools and districts as an “initiative fixer.” When it comes to “wishing we had some good data,” I typically find that little, if any, priority had been given to the use of data at the outset. When priority is given, it is typically directed toward summative data that can only be realized far, far into the initiative’s implementation.
This school year, let’s intentionally back things up. There is much to acknowledge and celebrate at each step of our initiative’s journey. I call it pursuing evidence over time. Different points in an initiative’s evolution require different tactics and produce different types of data. But all provide insurance against crisis, while at the same time contributing the predictable outcomes you ultimately seek.
Here’s a quick overview of the opportunities I recommend all leaders pursue in the natural course of initiative implementation:
Reprinted from Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis: 24 Go-to Strategies
The pyramid-like representation exists with purpose. Setting, realizing, and celebrating early wins provides a solid foundation and helps give the initiative an early momentum that presses forward—even when the inevitable bumps in the road arise. Implementation milestones establish a shared expectation about everything we’ll do. Monitoring those accomplishments also helps to keep us on the path. Early results sustain the implementation work, provide opportunities to adjust the effort and outcomes if merited, and give us something to share with supports—which sustains their interest too. All of this happens as we move toward demonstrating the outcomes and impact we carefully designed our initiative to produce. Of course, when done right from the start, those outcomes address the very needs you documented through needs assessment, therefore closing the big circle from needs to impact that frame the strategy that is education initiatives.
Here’s a short, closing thought experiment: Take 30 seconds and think back over the programs you experienced early in life. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t make an immediate connection between at least three programs and the person they are today. This experience quickly demonstrates the life-changing potential of the education programs each of us lead. With such profound and possible outcomes, why wouldn’t we do everything we can to optimize their life-changing impact?
