De-implementation

Doing less to achieve more

Hey šŸ‘‹

Welcome to the last full fat Snack before I take a break for August (to spend some time with the fam). Thanks for all your support so farā€”itā€™s been a blast!

Big idea šŸ‰

Teachers and school leaders tend to care a lot about helping their students learn. As a result, we can easily find ourselves in a place where we haveā€”over time and with the best of intentionsā€”added lots of strands to our work.

However, this direction of travel can become problematic if not managed carefully. The time we have for work is (and should be) finiteā€”which means that every time we add something new, we subtract a little from what existed before.

In short, teaching is a zero-sum game. And if we donā€™t approach it as such, we can all-to-easily end up overloaded, burnt out, and generally being less effective than originally intended.

If weā€™re going to keep making things better for our students in a sustainable manner, we need to intentionally stop doing things (or at least do them differently) as well as adding them. This is the basis of ā€˜de-implementationā€™.

ā€œThe essence of effective leadership is stopping doing good things, so we have more time to spend on even better things.ā€

ā€” Dylan Wiliam

At itā€™s most basic, de-implementation has 3 phases:

  1. Identifying the thing We might stop doing something because the problem no longer exists, the solution is no longer effective, or the costs simply outweigh the benefits. Any decision should be grounded in evidence, and focus on something within our control.

  2. Designing the change Depending on the situation, we might decide to either remove, reduce, rework, or replace our approach (this is a slight variation of the 4 Rs suggested by Hamilton, Hattie & Wiliam).

  3. Implementing the de-implementation Securing a change (even stopping something) often requires careful management. The EEFā€™s implementation guide offers a good starting point for this.

Now, itā€™s important to highlight that ego and the sunk-cost fallacy can sometimes scupper our efforts to subtract before adding. We risk losing face when we decide that we're not going to do something we previously decided to do, and we often find it hard to let go of things we've invested heavily in already. As a result, de-implementation requires both strategy and bravery.

Summary

ā€¢ Because we care so much about doing a good job, we can easily end up with too many strands to our work.

ā€¢ This can be a problem because teaching is a zero-sum gameā€”every time we add something new, we subtract from what already exists.

ā€¢ We can manage this situation by taking an intentional approach to subtracting before adding, aka de-implementation.

Challenge ā†’ When was the last time you analysed your workload for something to stop doing? How could you make this an even greater part of your (and your schoolsā€™) improvement routine?

Little links šŸ„•

Thatā€™s it from me for now. During August, you can still expect a few emails, but theyā€™ll be much lighter snacks, just to keep things ticking over till September.

And for those of you just stepping into summer breakā€”rest well & hope you get to use some sunscreen.

Peps šŸ‘Š