2018 MAESP Leadership Conference Larry Flakne and David Lineberry

March 4, 2018

Mizzou Ed

Getting Better at Getting Better:

Improvement Science 101

Questions for You What triggers your improvement or

intervention cycle? How do you plan and implement? How do you know what’s working and

what isn’t?

Continuous Quality Improvement involves

multiple iterative cycles of activity over extended time periods in an effort to increase the capacity of an organization to produce successful outcomes for different sub-groups of students, being educated by different teachers, and in varied contexts. Programs and processes are continuously monitored for effectiveness and efficiency as well as opportunities for improvement.

Improvement Science disciplines

inquiries to improve practice. Undergirding it is an… [investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion]; of what we need to know to improve practice and how we may come to know it.

Symptoms Approach Systems Approach

“Our problems come from our employees not working hard enough or caring enough.”

“Problems and errors are the result of defects in the system. We should change the system so people can do their jobs well.”

“We need more professional development resources for our staff.”

“We need to improve our professional development processes to make them more effective for our staff.”

“We don’t have the time to really get to the bottom of the issue. Let’s just deal with this crisis and try hard to avoid them in the future.”

“We need to see the system and be proactive so that in the long run, we can be more efficient with the time we do have.”

Be problem focused and

user centered.

Focus on variation in

performance.

See the system that produces

the current outcomes.

Embrace measurement.

Learn through disciplined

inquiry.

Organize as networks.

Be problem focused and

user centered.

Watch users work.

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. Abraham Maslow

Solutionitis is the tendency to jump quickly to a

solution before fully understanding the actual problem to be solved. It results in incomplete analysis of the problem to be addressed and fuller consideration of potential problem-solving alternatives. It is silo-ed reasoning—seeing complex matters through a narrow angle lens—that can lure leaders into unproductive strategies.

WHAT OFTEN

HAPPENS:

WHAT WE INTEND

TO HAPPEN:

Directing changes strategically at

the right targets

THE

PROBLEM

Throwing changes at the problem

at hoping they hit the mark

Bright, shiny things.

Focus on variation in

performance

Understanding the sources of variation in outcomes, and responding effectively to them, lies at the heart of quality improvement. Learning to Improve

…variation itself is nature’s only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. STEPHEN JAY GOULD

In the context of schooling, this means more consistently producing positive outcomes for diverse students being educated by different teachers and in varied contexts. Learning to Improve

Goal of Improvement:

Quality with reliability Mean

What works, for whom

under what set of conditions?

What works?

Focusing on Variation

• Data Review (What do our data show?)

• Data Sources Review (Do we have the data we need?)

• End User survey/interview (What does the “client” say?)

• “Gap analysis” of process (What is our standard process? What is our variant process? What is the nature of our input variation?)

• Identify process change (What change in “input” will we make?)

• Implement, measure, study

• Rinse, lather, repeat.

“Developing standard work processesis key to reducing the stress and cognitive overload associated with carrying out complex tasks.” Learning to Improve

See the system that produces the current outcomes

The key to improvement is seeing the actual organization of work amidst this complexity.

If you can't describe what

you are doing as a process,

you don't know what you're

doing. W. Edward Deming

Guard against attribution error:Blaming individuals most immediately connected to undesirable results, rather than recognizing the full causes of those results.

“Have we created the conditions necessary for success?”

“Have we created the best possible conditions for the greatest possible success?”

Newsflash:

Education is an increasingly complex field.

Understand (“see”) your complex system more clearly through causal systems analysis.

The causal systems analysis protocol:

• Identifying the specific problem to be addressed.

• Asking and answering the WHY questions:

• WHY do we get the outcomes we do?

• WHY does that occur?

• WHY does that matter?

• WHY is that?

• Visual Representation of the problem analysis

• Often through fishbone diagrams

• Developing a responsive System Improvement Map

--The Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”—Paul Batalden, Institute for Healthcare

Improvement

Embrace measurement

Data and Information Considerations

ESTABLISHING MEASURES

Change must be measured to determine improvement.

There should be a measure for each component of a plan.

Measurements should include: Process Measures- demonstrate that steps in the system

are on track and proceeding as planned. Outcome Measures- demonstrate that improvement

resulted from change. Balancing Measures- demonstrate that unintended

consequences didn’t occur due to change.

Learn through disciplined

inquiry

“No governmental or professional infrastructure currently exists for engaging educators in developing and testing such practice-based knowledge and synthesizing what is learned along the way.”--”Learning to Improve”, p.46

When we consider plans to be “definitely incomplete and possibly wrong” (Bryk, et. al.),

we have the freedom to adjust as evidence is revealed. Therefore, do not submit to “analysis paralysis.” Understand that improvement is a learning journey that may take twists and turns along the way.Bryk, Anthony S.; Gomez, Louis M.; Grunow, Alicia; LeMahieu, Paul G.. Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better (Kindle Locations 2775-2776). Harvard Education Press. Kindle Edition.

Organize as networks

Accountability means that an organization is packed with people who embody and protect excellence (even when they are tired, overburdened, and distracted), who work vigorously to spread it to others, and who spot, help, critique, and (when necessary) push aside colleagues who fail to live and spread it. The trick—and it is a difficult trick— is to design a system where this tug of responsibility is constant, strong, and embraced by everyone, and where slackers, energy suckers, and selfish soloists have no place to hide.

Robert I Sutton and Huggy Rao Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less

Questions

UsLarry Flakne, flaknel@Missouri.edu

David Lineberry, lineberryd@Missouri.edu