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Preparing for Implementation: Running Your Own Race to Achieve Lasting Success
Preparing for Implementation: Running Your Own Race to Achieve Lasting Success
When participating in a marathon, it’s essential to remind yourself to run your own race. The competition is between you and time. While many others surround you, you’re not racing against them; you’re racing the clock. Implementation is much like a marathon. You must prepare to complete the race, just as you must have a plan or guidelines to achieve your implementation goals. This blog will discuss how to build readiness through exploration as you prepare to implement an innovation. Proper preparation helps avoid false starts or ineffective implementation. Exploration supports this preparation, leading to better performance and desired outcomes. At SISEP, we believe so strongly in the importance of readiness through exploration that we offer a State Education Agency (SEA) Implementation Exploration series. This series helps partners understand the landscape, evaluate infrastructure, identify core components, understand the context, and recognize their needs. Let’s explore how to get ready to run our race!
You wouldn’t wake up one day and decide to run a marathon tomorrow! You must ask yourself, how can I prepare to complete this marathon successfully? While you could attempt a marathon without preparation, it’s unlikely you’d succeed. Similarly, when implementing innovations in schools, they are often fast-tracked to address a need or solve a problem, which can lead to mixed results. So, how can you avoid false starts and inconsistent outcomes? Readiness is the key!
Readiness isn’t something you just find or a permanent trait of a person, organization, or system (Fixsen, Blase, Horner, Sims & Sugai, 2013).
Understanding the Landscape
Before running a marathon, you need to understand what’s required to complete it. At SISEP, we use the Hexagon Tool to help partners assess their readiness to implement an innovation. This tool allows agencies to plan, evaluate, and examine their preparedness to implement a particular innovation and determine if it fits their specific SEA. It helps decision-makers ensure that the innovation will lead to the desired outcomes and is cost-effective. A clear understanding of the current situation allows for meaningful conversations about the next steps.
Examining and Developing Infrastructure
Runners preparing for a marathon must also consider if they have the necessary cardiovascular and weight training programs—this serves as their infrastructure. Once you understand the situation, a needs assessment is crucial to determine the effectiveness of your infrastructure. Infrastructure includes leadership support and the resources and systems necessary for effective implementation. SEAs need executive sponsors who champion the work and assess their capacity to implement an innovation. This infrastructure builds the SEA’s capacity for successful implementation. For instance, developing a data system to support decision-making is a form of infrastructure development. Additionally, SEAs must ensure their systems and practices align with the goal of implementation to fidelity. Do staff members need professional learning to support this innovation? Is funding available? Are we culturally responsive? Are there existing structures to support the innovation? These questions must be answered to gain both internal and external consensus, which is critical to successful implementation.
Identifying Components of Implementation
The core components of running a marathon include running, weightlifting, proper nutrition, and adequate rest for optimal performance. As you build infrastructure, you must ask where to start. What components are required to make implementation happen? Implementers should consider if they have a usable innovation, what teams are in place to support implementation, what procedures and policies exist, what data they are collecting. The Active Implementation Formula is a valuable concept to discuss this. This formula suggests that Effective Practices, Effective Implementation, and Enabling Context, when multiplied together, lead to Socially Significant Outcomes. As with any multiplication formula, if one factor is zero, the outcome will be zero. To avoid poor outcomes, implementers must ensure none of these factors are lacking.
Context Matters
Just as marathon runners must follow a training and meal plan tailored to their specific goals, implementers must ensure that an innovation fits their local context. Even if an innovation has data supporting its outcomes, it must align with existing initiatives, current priorities, and organizational structures. Recognizing the fit helps implementers ensure the innovation supports the system rather than causing confusion or additional challenges.
Overview of an Intensive Partnership
On race day, the runner follows their plan and relies on a pacesetter—an accountability partner who helps maintain their pace and achieve their best time. Similarly, an intensive partnership can provide essential support that isn’t readily available to the implementer. This support might include data and evaluation assistance, communication, visibility of the innovation, technical assistance, and coaching. The partnership guides implementers through the process, offering valuable insights and addressing potential challenges.
Understanding the Need
After completing a marathon, the runner should continue a similar training plan to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They can make adjustments based on the information gathered during their first marathon. Similarly, once SEAs understand the rationale behind readiness, they must consider what they aim to achieve. When discussing needs, this can focus on building readiness and implementing an innovation that leads to outcomes. This doesn’t have to happen in isolation. Partners can build on existing structures while considering which innovation will lead them to their desired outcomes. Implementers must identify their specific needs—has data been used to assess the needs of all populations? Can data help get to the root cause of the problem to address gaps within the current structure? SEAs also need to communicate these needs clearly to avoid misconceptions among parents and the community. Transparent communication improves understanding and ensures all parties are aware of the “why” behind the change.
Conclusion
The most important thing to remember in implementation is that you’re running your own race. Runners know they need a plan to reach their goal and can’t skip steps in preparation. Similarly, to implement an innovation and achieve desired outcomes, you must build readiness. Implementation shouldn’t be a one-time effort but an ongoing process of continuous growth and improvement. Implementers should anticipate challenges, learn from them, and focus on improvement through cycles of refinement. Data will be your guide, allowing for necessary adjustments. Successful implementation requires ready and willing teams who understand that it takes time. Sustaining change fosters a culture of ongoing improvement. Implementers should continuously evaluate their efforts and consider how to integrate successful systems and practices into their organization’s routine operations, creating lasting systems. The SEA Implementation Exploration Series has been developed to support those looking to improve readiness. Remember, running your own race leads to success, defined by your unique context.
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