This Week’s review is on Making Room for Impact: A De-Implementation Guide for Educators by Arran Hamilton, John Hattie, and Dylan Wiliam.
A hands-on guide for taking a critical eye at the multitude of initiatives schools and districts tend to run, Making Room for Impact comes at a critical time for the educational field. Over the last quarter century, buoyed by increased funding, stagnated test scores, and changing educational expectations, schools have added more and more to the plate. Making Room for Impact is an at-times repetitive attempt to offer schools a process and system to examine these and allow room for focus, efficacy, and staff retention.
The book is divided into two main sections, the first focusing on the “big picture” with the later spread over nine chapters for the nine steps and four stages of deimplementation. As the foreword notes: “their approach is about giving the tools to think through; be efficient; eliminate ‘waste’; and thus have more time to focus on what matters most: time to ensure students’ growth and achievement” (xviii). The authors set the primary question as “what’s the worst that could happen if we just stopped doing X?” (xxii). Their process can take four paths: removing, reducing, re-engineering, or replacing. The book provides both examples of each of these worked through and additional ideas for each of these categories in an appendix. This introduction ends with the reminder to not allow work to expand into this reclaimed time – a warning revisited throughout.
Chapter 1 then picks up with three basic arguments for de-implementation. These are to support teachers, to ensure focus on outcomes, and to ensure proper allotment of resources. One of the ongoing examples is providing high quality curriculum – here it is introduced with a simile to surgeons making their own equipment. The second half of this chapter discusses the reasons why de-implementation is hard. These are rooted in human nature (it’s easier to add and harder to unlearn), learning environments are complex (32) with many factors, and there’s a lack of systems around the idea of de-implementation in schools. By placing these warnings in the front, the authors work to provide talking points for resistance for the whole process.
You will get sick of seeing this diagram if you read this book.
Chapter 2 provides a “helicopter overview” of the process, explaining the research, and providing advice for getting ready to start the process in your own environment. The rest of the text dives into these in depth while providing examples drawn from the four strategies. The authors continually focus on ensuring that was is deimplemented has a positive effect on student learning (pulling out Jenga blocks while ensuring that the stability of the tower does not change). The 8 things to remember about the process point to the complexity inherent in deimplementation both in the selecting and the doing of the process. Some of these are as simple as considering the optimal divide between searching/exploring and implementation in terms of time (they cite 37/63%) (55).
The rest of the book is a walk-through of each of the steps. Rather than reiterate what the diagram says above, notes on each of the following steps follow. Each of these chapters provide context, key actions, and diagrams/maps to provide detailed instructions in moving through each step.
Permit
- We need to ensure that there is no shame attached to the process of deimplementing
- A big part of this is “not just explicit permission but also a mandate to focus on de-implementation” from the senior levels of leadership (67)
- The team given the task of following this mandate might be temporary but must include a sponsor – the one with the authority to get the process followed
- Others will be a part of this team and several roles are suggested – together these make up the spine for the organization to go through with the process
- There is a suggested license to operate with detailed aspects of the team (72)
- Parent and student voice may be included but this can add extra challenges
- The authors include an example matrix for setting up responsibilities and accountabilities for each of these roles and steps (74)
- The last major caveat is to ensure that we “do no harm” when we remove things – the tower should not collapse
Prospect
- One key area to look for potential projects is to compare the policy to the practice
- Or we can list and examine current initiatives and analyze their impact
- A third way to do this is to do a time study, mapping out what everyone does to check it and find areas of time suck
- With enough resources you might create a plan for each of the potential areas; but realistically a focus on 2-3 works best; doing this through the lens of HEAT (Harm, Ease, Acceptability, and Time Saved) can help us find quick wins
- These plans might be lots of little actions, a small number of mega actions, or a hybrid approach
Postulate
- We need to be wary of those that might sneak back in and rebuild what is de-implemented – a big part of this is confirming that we must take down the “fence” and identify derailers
- We can gather this data inductively – by asking questions (a sample list is provided in 107), and deductively – coming up with a theory and examining the data around it.
- We need to be careful to differentiate between holding beliefs and whether the belief is actually true
Propose
- This stage enables to identify all possible ideas – one fun way to do this is with the “Worst possible idea – getting people to devise as many bad ideas as possible for each 4R category” (127)
- By discussing these ideas deeply, we typically are drawn to one of the 4 R strategies
- Pareto Analysis – comparing what people would add with extra time (X) and what they would do if there was less time (Y); when X = Y you have a good idea of what to focus on (133)
- The proposal stage then digs into potential actions and the ones agreed upon by the committee to take as they move forward
Prepare
- Ideally, we stress test at this stage – taking our proposal and knocking it around in conversation to ensure we have done or best to anticipate challenges and successes
- Especially in this context, the idea of a pre-mortem planning tool using a four-quadrant box identifying potential causes of failure and steps to take is a great one (154)
- In discussing paths forward, the authors present some case studies in this section, which will be called to moving forward
- They advice that Reduce is the least recommended of the 4Rs as “you are highly likely to backslide” (161)
- Re-Engineering on the other hand allows for a focus on the current state and creation of a better state with a detailed plan
- Replace is noted as the second hardest because it calls to not only drop something but start a new thing (165) but this tends to be the “default mode of most school improvement activity”
Picture
- Part of what is pictured is the monitoring process – what and how is the implementation measured
- The first key step is defining success – answering what will be done? What will be on the impact on students and staff? And what are we doing with the savings? (176-177)
- In the context of evaluation of de-implementation the authors state, in bold: “One common fact that seems to matter more than all the others: whether you regularly checked in to confirm that you are indeed doing the things you intended to do” (179)
- What might be measured might mirror the data sources from the prospect step
- A part of what might be set up are kill parameters – “a rules-based system for stopping. You are saying ‘if X, Y, or Z happens, we kill this thing immediately. There is no debate. There are no get-out clauses. We just stop. Immediately. The end.’” (188)
Proceed
- This chapter is purposely short as its steps are outlined by all the previous ones
- A project manager should “keep track of progress, to check in with action owners for each task, to chivvy them, and to report to the backbone leader/organizational sponsor on progress and slippages” (196)
- Evaluation can be a part of this progress tracking
- The data can be divided into inputs, outputs, and outcomes – with all three being tracked consistently
Appraise
- The appraisal process warns about comparing using a fake vs real evaluation – a real one is grounded in the processes and plans set up in (2.3) and done during (3.1)
- Appraisal needs to be done in such a way as to avoid cognitive bias (sunk cost, ostrich, confirmation, cherry-picking, and plan continuation) (223)
- Evaluating the evaluative tools is helpful too! Look at the efficiency of the process and the possibility of perverse incentives
Propel
- The process can be built up by chalking up and displaying wins – converting time saved into a per teacher, per year number for example
- Such celebration can ensure that new team members do not bring back such initiatives (or that staff do not slip back)
- These cultural foci align with the room for impact mind frames – a good example of root beliefs
- Dual swim teams can create a building for impact initiative and a removing for impact initiative
Appendix 1 is a great “shopping list” of opportunities. One can imagine this book being the perfect book study for year 4-5 of a leadership team’s tenure.
Making Room for Impact: A De-Implementation Guide for Educators by Arran Hamilton, John Hattie, and Dylan Wiliam.
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Good For: Leaders ready to reflect and prune.
Best nugget: The mapping out of the various opportunities for deimplementation.
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