Key Action III.2

Step Back Quarterly To Review Data And Adjust The Plan

What is the goal?

The goal of this key action is to examine progress to goals, identify key successes, and learn from and solve for significant challenges. After analyzing the data and considering key drivers, the team will adjust the plan for the next chapter of work. We suggest holding these formal stepbacks quarterly, although we have seen some early implementers benefit from more frequency in the first three months.

Why this key action is important

Though the team should check in regularly throughout the year to monitor progress and keep the work moving forward, a formal stepback at a larger interval of time allows for deeper reflections and gives the team an opportunity to get out of the day-to-day challenges and take stock of overall progress to your goals. This is the time to look at the whole picture and decide what to do. Listening and adjusting builds investment and confidence, and it allows everyone involved to be more efficient in spending energy in ways that support progress.

Explanation of language

We use the word stepback as a noun to refer to the actual meeting that takes place with the Implementation Support Team, and we use step back as a verb to describe the collective act of gaining perspective on the whole story. Data refers to quantifiable data (e.g., student scores or survey results) as well as qualitative data (e.g., observation notes).

steps

guiding questions

notes & resources

  • 1.
    What are the goals for the stepback meeting?
  • 2.
    What data do we need to report on our progress to goal? What data do we already have? Do we need to gather additional data in preparation for the stepback meeting?
  • 3.
    Is there additional stakeholder feedback we need to gather?
  • 4.
    What is our agenda? Who will facilitate which portions?
  • 5.
    What meeting norms do we need in place to create a productive, supportive, and solutions-oriented discussion?
  • 6.
    What pre-work, if any, will there be for the meeting?
  • 7.
    How will we communicate the agenda, goals, and pre-work?
  • The resource Quarterly Stepback Agenda and Email is a sample agenda with an adaptable email that you can send. You can also use the sample Quarterly Stepback Data Gathering Template to collect all data and stakeholder feedback in one place—edit the template in the resource as needed to align with the goals you set in your Progress Monitoring Plan and Approaches. You can also reference the notes in the Implementation Observation Log you used in Step III.1.A: See the Work in Action and Listen to Questions and Concerns.
  • Sharing and discussing data openly can be scary and trigger feelings of evaluation for team members, particularly when looking at data broken out by any subgroups (e.g., specific grade levels or schools). Setting team norms around meeting culture can help make the discussion more productive for the team. The resource Quarterly Stepback Meeting Norms includes some sample norms that you can use as a starting point.
  • Ensure you are disaggregating the data where possible to evaluate for equity. Are all student groups getting access to the same experience and expectations?
  • 1.
    Where are we on pace to meet our goals?
  • 2.
    What are the drivers of success?
  • 3.
    How can we best celebrate these successes?
  • 4.
    Where are we off track to meet our goals?
  • 5.
    What is holding us back from meeting those goals?
  • 6.
    What are the two to three areas we want to improve in the next quarter?
  • Reference your agenda, sample norms, and templates for organizing data for the conversation that you laid out in Step III.2.A: Prepare Data for the Stepback.
  • If some areas for improvement are clear based on your data, adjust these guiding questions to focus on the root cause and potential solutions for those areas.
  • Though it’s tempting to try to solve everything at once, it can be helpful to focus on two to three improvements and keep the rest on a running list for potential changes to revisit.
  • In this step, your aim is to identify which adjustments need to be made. In the next Key Action (III.3C: Adjust the Goals and Plan for the Coming Year), you will decide how to make these adjustments with precision.
  • 7.
    For each of the two to three priorities, what is the root of the problem?
  • 8.
    What adjustments do we need to make?
  • 9.
    What are we going to do about it?
  • 10.
    At our next stepback meeting, how will we know if these adjustments worked?
  • 11.
    What do we need to observe and what additional data do we need to collect next quarter to know if these adjustments are working?
  • 1.
    What are all the possible options for how we could make the necessary adjustments?
  • 2.
    Which option is the best approach right now, given the resources, training, and capacity we have available?
  • 3.
    Who will be responsible for making each adjustment?
  • 4.
    What is the timeline for making these adjustments?
  • 5.
    Do we need more resources, training, and/or capacity to make these adjustments? If so, how can we get or build them?
  • This step asks you to go back into your Implementation Plan to adjust the plan, as opposed to throwing the old plan out and starting from scratch.
  • Update your roles and responsibilities tracker in your Implementation Plan, as needed.
  • Listening and adjusting the plan builds confidence and trust, especially when every member of the team is on the same page and can describe the rationale in a way that is connected with the vision and core beliefs.
  • 6.
    What will each stakeholder group want to know about the adjustments to the plan?
  • 7.
    How do we plan to proactively communicate this information? Who will deliver the communication? When?
  • 8.
    What questions do we expect we will get? How will we answer them?
  • Quarterly communications can be a great opportunity to celebrate the hard work of implementation and fuel the fire to keep continuously improving.
  • The Email Communicating Adjustments After a Stepback resource is a sample email from a system based on the adjustments they made.
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Workbook

This workbook is designed to help a school or system leadership team work through the implementation process together. Assemble your team, print or download the workbook, find your starting point, and dig in together.

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