TregoED Sandy Wozniak, Author at TregoED

Building a Strong Foundation for Budget Decisions and Communications

February 24, 2021

Making good budget decisions is essential – and so is being able to build understanding and communication around those decision. Using a solid process can lay the groundwork for both. Not only will it result in better decisions, but it also will give you a framework for clear communication. To turn a well-known phrase – if you build it they will come – if you communicate it right – they will understand.

Good communication is good communication

Out of necessity during the pandemic, leaders have built new infrastructures to support good communication – Web pages, blogs, social media, and digital meeting rooms. The same best practices that emerged from COVID-related communication are now being used for public meetings and other communication forums related to school budgets. Regardless of platform however, building understanding and support for a budget is made easier with a foundation of solid decision making with clear objectives, stakeholder perspectives and disciplined choices.

3 key elements to build upon

Making budget decisions is not enough. School leaders need to be able to let the public see and understand how complicated budget decisions can be. A transparent and visible process, like decision analysis, helps do this. It helps leaders make a compelling presentation to the public and deepen understanding of these 3 key elements of the decision:

As an essential part of the work of both the decision making and communication, your team should be provided with the necessary skills to approach them both with confidence. In this short video, Conor Neil, from the IESE Business School, explains why it is crucial that those around you have the ability to make good decisions and communicate or “influence” others to ensure successful implementation. Giving those around you the tools for independent, clear and consistent decision making also gives you a team that can work confidently and independently.

While remote communication infrastructure continues to evolve, it is even more important that the message that you share is consistent, clear, and transparent. Using a decision-making framework allows you to build budget communications around the 3 key elements demonstrating both the process and the reasoning behind your recommendations.

Tips for Tackling Triple Squeeze Budget Challenges

January 27, 2021

School budgets are facing a big squeeze The triple squeeze on this year’s budget will make cuts difficult enough – having a good solid process can help you avoid making it feel even worse.

According to the research article, The Cost of Covid, district budgets are caught in a triple squeeze caused by:

New COVID-Response Costs – The costs incurred by both remote learning and making in-person learning safe during this pandemic have taken a toll on this year’s budget.
Declining Revenue – Districts have been dealing with declining revenues for years exacerbated this year by declining sales tax revenues, declining enrollment, etc.
Greater Student Needs – Inequities and barriers for students of color and students with higher needs — including students from low-income backgrounds- existed pre-pandemic. Remote learning and more rigorous learning standards have magnified those inequities.

Increased concerns for 2021

Additional concerns for budgeting in 2021 were raised by leaders across the US that use TregoED’s Decision Making process. Some found the prospect of leading meetings that last over several days in a virtual landscape daunting. They will face the challenge of keeping participants engaged over those potentially long meetings and ensuring that all voices are heard. Others brought up that some districts have held certain budget items sacrosanct. Knowing that all potential options will have to be explored, they wonder how you can approach making cuts to legacy programs with the support and understanding of stakeholders in the affected community. Still others recognized that there may have to be a shift in goals, priorities and projects to focus on evaluation and remediation of learning loss and meeting the social emotional needs of students and staff. All of these concerns can best be addressed when there is trust and transparency in the process used to develop the budget.

Tips for ensuring a smooth and transparent process

Amy Lowder, Director of Safety and Well-being with Cabarrus County Schools (and TregoED Process user) shared some of her tips for facilitating tough budget decisions:

Make your process transparent and visible – building a decision-making culture that values input and involvement is a great foundation for building trust.
Realize the power of the facilitator role– the facilitator of the process should play an impartial role and should be fluent in the questions that are necessary to get the right data to make choices.
Ensure that objectives are clearly defined and have firm agreement by stakeholders – perhaps the most important step – make your ultimate goals collaboratively and clearly
Remember how important risks are to your final choices: if a specific or group of cuts will sink your budget or alienate a large portion of the community, you need to determine if that is a risk you want to take.
Don’t deny the power of the process! Having a clear transparent process can help you proceed smoothly through challenging discussions and help the community understand how and why decisions are made.

Clearly, district leaders and communities face a daunting challenge developing budgets for 2021-2022. Following these tips for applying a clear, transparent process ensures that the process you use does not add to that challenge.

Achieve Lasting Results for Students by Thinking Upstream

January 12, 2021

Thinking upstream can improve results How often do we become so lost in rescuing and firefighting that we fail to think upstream- to what’s causing a problem and ways to prevent it or lessen its impact? Imagine two friends picnicking by a river when suddenly they start seeing children floating down the river in need of rescue. They both dive in and begin pulling kids to safety. But the children keep on coming and the friends keep on rescuing – until finally one of them thinks to get out and walk upstream to try to stop whoever must be throwing in the children. Such is a parable shared by best-selling author Dan Heath, in his new book Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen.

Upstream Thinking

TregoED process users will recognize elements of Problem Analysis and Potential Problem Analysis in this kind of ”upstream thinking.” Heath calls it “tunneling” when we get lost in the rescuing (or interim actions or band-aid solutions in our lingo). It is one of the 3 major barriers to upstream thinking. The other two barriers include:

Problem blindness – failing to see the problem – getting so used to a problem that we see it as inevitable or expected, rather than something that is preventable or addressable.
Lack of ownership – not seeing a problem as ours to fix – thinking that we are not responsible for or capable of doing anything to address it.

Chicago Public Schools See Results

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) went from a 52.4% graduation rate to 78% by simply changing the way they saw the problem. Heath describes how the low graduation rate had sadly almost become accepted as inevitable. However, using research that showed if freshmen stayed on track, they were much more likely to graduate, CPS reoriented the system to better support freshman. They set up freshman success teams, other supports, monitoring and policies that helped freshmen stay or get back on track. Solving the problem upstream ultimately improved the graduation rate by more than 25%.

Taking a Systems Approach

Upstream thinking requires taking a systems approach. It isn’t enough to only see what is in front of us. We have to think about what came before and how it’s all connected – adjustments made upstream impact things downstream. Consider how often we are caught up in dealing with various problems – high disciplinary referrals, low student achievement, spotty attendance, high turnover, etc. Perhaps these even seem inevitable and beyond our sphere of responsibility or capability. Anytime we feel like we are on a hamster wheel of constant fire-fighting, we are likely caught in reactive rescuing mode. How do we get beyond this? By looking at what is causing these problems – not necessarily the original cause – but something upstream that can be addressed.

Upstream thinking can create enduring solutions to big issues – not just short-term fixes. As Heath states, “researchers have found that when people experience scarcity – of money, time, or mental bandwidth, the harm is not that the big problems crowd out the little ones. The harm is that the little ones crowd out the big ones.” It’s something to think about – that the big important problems may never get addressed when we are too busy swatting at flies.

6 Benefits of Shared Decision Making in Turbulent Times

November 11, 2020

Back in the good old days of 2019, in November and December we were in the thick of it – getting settled into the true rhythm of the typical school year. There were plenty of decisions to be made, problems to be solved, plans to implement, programs to assess. These days things are a bit more difficult. Using a shared decision-making process can provide benefits during turbulent times and in the (hopefully less chaotic) years to come.

Unprecedented opportunities

A study shared in an Edweek blog focused on the Large Countywide and Suburban District Consortium. It described the current state of this school year as unprecedented with “frequent external changes, the ramifications of unfinished learning from the end of the last year, structural inequities, likely budget cuts and teacher, principal and central office attrition…” As a result, in the absence of clear-cut guidance from the national level “some districts banded together to create common decision frameworks to bring some coherence to their geographic areas.”

The 6 benefits of a shared framework

Using shared decision frameworks can reap many benefits stemming from the coherence of a common language cultivated both within and between departments, schools, and districts. A shared approach can provide a readily understandable roadmap to keep leaders moving towards goals. The benefits derived from a common framework can be the key to handling complex, emotion laden situations with transparency and confidence.

6 Benefits of Using a Shared Decision-Making Process

6 Benefits of Shared Decision Making processes

True collaboration: A sound approach allows all people to participate and elevate their thinking. There is no limit to what can be achieved when people value themselves and others for the perspectives, information, creativity, and thinking we each provide.
Clearer data: Sorting through the data and asking the right questions can help you organize and analyze data to determine what is relevant, what might be missing, and what the data means.
Better outcomes: With a thoughtful and well considered approach and stakeholder input, you dramatically increase the possibility of good outcomes or results.
Increased organizational and individual capacity: The capacity to make better decisions with a shared process can have a positive effect on every department and school and every level of a district saving time, money and energy.
Time saved – Investing time on the frontend can save untold amounts of time and resources on the backend. A shared process helps leaders keep the organization focused on their goals.
Increased trust, transparency, collaboration and confidence -Having a shared problem-solving process allows others to see the logic, careful thought, and stakeholder input in what was decided – even if they weren’t involved. This transparency builds trust and confidence.

Facing the Challenges ahead

Yes, it is early in the school year and we still have many challenges ahead. Dealing with students/staff moving back and forth from in-person to virtual education, pressure from the community in all directions, concerns about safety, work environments, substitutes, funding, etc. are all part of the everyday decision making of 2020. On a positive note, the above study found that “virtual collaboration has collapsed existing silos, allowing unprecedented opportunities for shared understanding, decision-making and authentic community involvement.” Having a common decision-making framework has proven to be one way to help you face the challenges ahead with a coherent approach resulting in confidence and clarity.

Common Tools are the Secret Sauce of Agile Leadership

October 13, 2020

Education leaders have certainly had their hands full developing emergency plans to protect students, employees and the community while ensuring education continuity. Most school districts have cleared the first few hurdles of returning to school, but they still face unchartered territory. Leading successfully through all the ripples, (which sometimes felt like tsunamis) caused by today’s everchanging realities requires organizational agility. According to McKinsey and Company, organizations with agility have the following ingredients:

5 Ingredients of agile organizations

In the “good old days of 2018-2019” most districts were already operating with the key ingredients for success: a clear vision (1), collaborative teams (2), dynamic employees (4), and functional technology (5). It was not until the turbulence of Covid-19 began, that it became clear that some ingredients or processes were missing or could use some shoring up.

The demands of virtual learning quickly uncovered the missing ingredients in technology availability, equity and preparedness. However, the shifting needs of a rapidly changing situation in all areas revealed another key ingredient, the secret sauce of quality procedures and a shared thinking process.

As collaborative teams became the norm in tackling the complexity, it became clear that the most effective teams were the ones that used solid processes and systems to organize their thinking. As Dr. Jim White, PhD stated, “Now there are too many unknowns to rely on lazy thinking, (Afraid to Step out of your Comfort Zone). Critical thinking in the COVID-19 era will separate effective leaders from the pack.”

The Secret Sauce of Process

of the 5 ingredients of agile organizations process is the secret sauce

Of the 5 ingredients of agility in an organization, having a common process is the secret sauce to clear and consistent thinking during turbulent times. A process like Situation Appraisal (SCAN) can help you:

Standardize your approach to problem solving across all teams and committees
Increase confidence in the end result
Better handle conflict
Get greater commitment from participants
Increase greater trust and transparency

Specifically, SCAN can help you take a “divide and conquer” approach to break large complex situations into smaller more manageable pieces.

Provide tools and support

A common approach to capture multiple perspectives, clarify and prioritize issues and establish action items is the key ingredient needed to orchestrate a coherent plan when knowledge is required from across different areas of expertise. Providing leaders with a proven tool like Situation Appraisal to work with their teams and community of stakeholders allows them to implement and sustain effective solutions with agility.

As the saying goes “We can’t control the wind in a storm, but we can adjust the sails.” At a time when change is the only constant, schools need to nurture resilience and agility by empowering their staff with the proper tools and support. With those tools or processes, leaders can improve their effectiveness in navigating complexity. Embracing a common tool or process like Situation Appraisal is the secret sauce of success in turbulent times.

Interested in learning more about using SCAN to navigate turbulent times? Join our webinar…..Approach Covid-19 Storms with Confidence: For more information:

October 20, 2020 – 3:00-4:00 pm (ET)

October 28, 2020 – 12:00-1:00pm (ET )

4 Steps to Prepare for Departing Leadership

August 31, 2020

prepare for departing leadership Anyone familiar with theater recognizes the concept of the understudy – the person who learns another’s role to be able to step in on short notice and play the part. Preparing for sudden departures, turnovers, and the Silver Tsunami in education, means building the leadership capacity. Planning for vacancies is an essential investment to avoid the costs and pressures of an “empty chair.” After all, life happens – even worldwide pandemics – and schools must go on! You can take steps today to prepare to lessen the impact of departing leadership.

Why prepare for those empty chairs?

There are dozens of reasons that chair might be empty. Nowadays the intense pressures and risks associated with educating in the age of COVID19, are causing many teachers and leaders to rethink their retirement or departure. In fact, 45% of principals surveyed, said that the pandemic had accelerated their departure plans (source). Even pre-pandemic, we faced a tidal wave of retirements coming our way. Every single day, 10,000 baby boomers reach retirement age. Whatever the reason for turnover, it can be disruptive and costly. In fact, its true organizational costs are estimated to be 100%-300% of an employee’s salary (source). As baby boomers retire, often less-experienced workers are moved (or thrust) into decision-making roles. Yet, a recent survey of organizations (pre-COVID19) found that 93% are not building the next generation of leaders in an adequate or robust way (source). This becomes all the more critical when you consider that it typically takes at least eight months for a new hire to reach full productivity (source). At this point, many districts do not have the luxury of time to prepare in advance for departing leadership.

How do you prepare when faced with a sudden vacancy?

In a perfect world, we would be able to plan for departures and have people waiting in the wings ready to move seamlessly into their new responsibilities. But clearly, we don’t live in a perfect world – especially right now.

What are you or your district doing to ensure that whoever fills that chair -or takes center stage- is ready to seamlessly make the transition? How can you support those people stepping up – either before, during or after they step in?

Here are 4 things you can do today to prepare for tomorrow’s empty chair or an unexpected departure:

1 – Have clarity about the skills and characteristics needed for the job

2 – Identify possible successors and/or rising stars

3– Consider their strengths and skills gaps

4– Involve them in work or learning that will build their capabilities and knowledge

Ideally, these steps might be done in advance, but sometimes we do not have the luxury of advance warning. Whatever you do, try not to panic. There are good people there who haven’t left – that can help ease the impact of the empty chair. Completing those 4 steps will help provide the encouragement and support they will need to succeed.

Safeguard your District’s Plans by “Thinking Things Through”

August 12, 2020

The Thinker - thinking things through It has been said, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” – using a good process to vet those plans before implementation can help you to avoid problems by just “thinking things through.” Your plans for re-opening schools and beyond are emotionally charged, high stakes and, if done right so far, – highly visible to your staff and community. Putting in the time to “think things through” can help you avoid problems and/or plan contingencies.

When major league baseball opened – all eyes were upon them. Such highly visible, high stakes plans must really have been thought through, right? I was shocked to hear that when the first rain delay occurred, those teams involved had no contingency plan in place in case of a long delay. Players were left together inside to ride out the storm – a situation that, for the many players and coaches who take Covid19 protocols seriously, made many angry and scared. I have to admit, I was a little surprised that they had not “thought things through” – after all, rain delays are a regular part of the game and it seems like MLB could afford to have their highly paid managers best thinking on re-opening protocols.

Even more important than baseball

Planning for re-opening schools is another highly visible, high stakes and even more personal emotionally-charged plan. How can you be sure that you have “thought of everything?” It seems it would be even more important here to use a systematic process to ensure that you have considered all possibilities.

What could go wrong?

So, how can you be sure that you have “thought things through?” What questions need to be asked? Potential Problem Analysis is a process that has been used successfully in many schools with all sorts of plans – from the placement of one special education student to the redistricting of schools. This process with the acronym P. L. A. N. is a step-by-step road map to help you check and double check that you have considered all possible problems and guide you through planning for both prevention and contingencies.

Potential Problem Analysis helps you “think things through”

4 Steps to Potential Problem Analysis

Step 1: Predict what could go wrong

It seems obvious that most districts would consider “what could go wrong” before implementing any complex plans, but, assessing the threat of each potential problem takes the thinking one step further. What is the specific future trouble or damage we hope to avoid? What is the probability (likelihood) this potential problem will occur? What is the seriousness (impact) if it does occur? Is the risk or threat level acceptable, or do we need to take action to reduce it? Asking these additional questions can help save you time and energy by helping you prioritize your planning.

Step 2: List likely causes

It is one thing to be aware of the specific problems you may encounter, it is another to drill down to the cause (or multiple causes of the problem). Again, understanding why the problem might occur ensures that you will focus on the cause when you are trying to plan for it, not just throwing a band aid on every problem that comes up along the way.

Determining the cause of a potential problem can lead to either preventative or contingent actions

Step 3: Agree on preventative actions

Asking “What can we do to keep each likely cause from occurring or creating the potential problem?” is the first step in helping you avoid the problem. To build a solid plan, you need to also determine What/Who/When—What needs to be done? Who will be responsible? By when must it be initiated or accomplished?

Step 4 Note Contingent Actions to limit the damage

What if, despite your “best laid plans” – the problem still occurs? How can we reduce the seriousness of the problem, if it does occur? Again, when developing contingency plans, you need to determine What/Who/When—What needs to be done? Who will be responsible? By when must it be in place? How do you know when these plans need to kick in? Identifying the triggers for any actions that need to be taken can be determined by determining “How will we know when the problem has occurred? Who or what will initiate/trigger each contingent action?”

How we will educate our students in the days, weeks, months and years to come is in flux. Your initial plans are set – maybe you have already started implementing – but have you thought things through? Using a systematic process can help ensure that you are prepared for every possible potential problem with both actions and contingencies.

Interested in learning more? Learn how schools can use PPA to shore up their plans. Attend our free webinar on Transitioning to the Next Normal: Potential Problem Analysis on August 19, 2020—9:00-10:00 am (ET)

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Simple Strategy for Cultivating the Silver Lining

Teams Need the Right Tools to SOAR!

July 29, 2020

Now – maybe even more than ever- critical work of schools and districts is being done in teams. Give those teams the right tools to soar! Collaboration almost always improves output quality, but the current environment has created some new team challenges and exacerbated some old ones. Some challenges we are currently seeing include:

Technology – Navigating the technology and figuring out how to optimize team meetings in a virtual environment
Virtual Meetings: Pressure for shorter meetings and less frequent meetings – given the quantity of meetings and people’s limited ability to stay virtually engaged or focused, there is pressure for shorter meetings and getting more done in less time.
Making work, progress, and outcomes visible – many people retain best what they see, not hear, – whether virtual or face-to-face, teams need to document, make visible and share their work. Furthermore, without a visible, shared way to track action items and next steps, it’s easy for these to languish or be overlooked.
Accommodating changing information, guidance, needs – as schools grapple with reopening in the midst of a pandemic, the information and environment is continually changing and evolving. Some teams struggle with being flexible and accommodating these changes.

So, what is needed for teams to really SOAR?

Structure – teams need a framework or way to get their work done. This could be TregoED process or any approach that allows them to effectively analyze information, draw conclusions, and produce tangible outputs. A shared structure ensures everyone is speaking the same language and can be part of the discussion – and it keeps people moving towards a common goal. This allows teams to make the most of their time together and to more easily pick up where they left off in previous meetings. Lack of structure means wasted time, unnecessary repetition, and halting progress. The absence of structure makes doing virtual team work particularly challenging.

Objectivity – pressing, complex situations and tasks create enormous pressures and conflict. Sometimes a team can only propose the best of some unattractive options. Opinions may be strong, and you can bet some people won’t like a team’s conclusions or recommendations. Effective teams, those with the right tools, handle conflict and heated emotion and strong opinions while never losing objectivity.

Agility – teams need to be open and flexible in responding to rapidly changing information, guidelines and situation requirements — especially in the current environment. Ironically, having a structure or shared approach for processing information and inputs helps teams be flexible while still being focused on what needs to be accomplished. Teams are able to more easily incorporate new information, understand where it fits and what changes it suggests.

Results – ultimately, the purpose of teamwork is to produce better results. Complex issues often require multiple action items and sub-projects. Successful teams ensure progress and accountability for action items. Ensuring that things get done – and done well – produces results.

Successful teams do not happen by accident. All teams can function effectively – even soar – when they have the right tools and supports!

Road Map for Successfully Reopening Schools

June 29, 2020

Have you ever wondered how Dorothy managed all the issues and concerns she encountered with the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz movie and actually made it to the Emerald City? She and her cohort of the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tinman essentially had a yellow brick “road map” to get them there. The yellow brick road map that will help you successfully reopen schools is a tool called Situation Appraisal or SCAN.

Recommendations, Issues, and Guidelines, OH MY!

By now, your district is deep into gaining understanding and dealing with your CDC, State and local guidelines on opening school this Fall and trying to figure out your own road map or “yellow brick road” to safely reopen schools. In fact, sticking with our analogy, we are facing a tornado of issues, worries, concerns, and yes maybe for those of you who are positive thinkers………opportunities. So how do you deal with this chaos and in a logical thoughtful way make sense of everything and deal with the most important issues one at a time?

Road Map: Situation Appraisal

The road map we would choose is Situation Appraisal. This tool is a systematic, logical strategy for identifying the issues, clarifying these issues, prioritizing them and finally putting together a solid action plan that describes in detail who does what and when. When you use SCAN to address the issues and concerns about going back to school, you will have the confidence that you, your colleagues and district have used a collaborative and comprehensive approach to manage the return of your students using four simple steps.

Just SCAN It – Step 1 > See the issues

We use the acronym SCAN to delineate each step. The first step, See the issues is as simple as pulling out a piece of paper, opening a shared doc or setting up a flip chart and asking stakeholders, “What concerns me/us about going back to school in the Fall?” You will be surprised a how quickly you think of things that are lurking out there. And then to keep the thinking going, a simple “What else” will make your list grow. The key to this brainstorming step is to list the issues, concerns and opportunities with out discussion. Just get them out and visible. See the example below:

Just SCAN It – Step 2 > Clarify the issues

In this step we take each of the issues generated in Step1 one at a time. I typically look at the list of issues and pick the one that I know a lot about or just ask the group which issue they want to work on first with. For this example, we will just look at the issue of “staffing.” Once that broad issue is identified you spend time understanding what this issue means to everyone. To start, you can go back to the person who added the issue and ask “What do you mean by…” You can also ask the group “what is important about this issue” or “what concerns me/us about this issue.” You record each clarification. As you do this you may see one very broad issue turn into several clarified sub issues. You will do this step for every broad issue you have identified. Below is an example of this clarification work on just the broad concern, “Staffing Issues”.

Just SCAN It – Step 3 > Assess the issues

Now that you have all your issues clarified the question becomes, which ones do we work on first. Which of these many issues are the highest priorities? We teach that you SUG each issue. This means for each clarified issue you determine the Seriousness, the Urgency and the Growth potential. In each dimension you use a scale of H,M,L. This is a very robust and sometimes time-consuming way to set priority. In some cases we use a faster way which is only consider Urgency and set that dimensions priority with H,M,L. Below is priority setting for the clarified “Staffing Issues”.

Just SCAN It – Step 4 > Name the next steps

The fourth and final step is setting up your action plan. This encompasses a brief description of what is going to be done to address the issue, who owns these actions and when will they get the action(s) done in calendar time. We recommend you do start by doing an action plan for all H issues. Then if you have time and/or enough help you can do action planning for the M issues. An example is below.

Many Benefits

This fairly simple and straightforward strategy can help you deal with the any complex situations that arise district-wide. Using this road map can help make your thinking visible, ensure that all concerns are heard and considered, prioritize activities to use your time and resources wisely and help you generate a coherent plan with accountability built in. Using SCAN can help you be well on your way to moving down the yellow brick road to a successful re-entry and getting back to school.

A Simple Strategy for Cultivating the Silver Lining

April 22, 2020

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill

National Geographic recently reported that air pollution makes Covid-19 more lethal, “but the pandemic has—temporarily—cleaned the skies. How can this silver lining – the experience of cleaner air -offer lessons for the kind of world we want to build after the pandemic?” What strategies can we use in education to capture and cultivate our own “silver linings” to foster while moving forward? How can we identify and cultivate those opportunities in a strategic and thoughtful way?

A Simple Strategic Tool for Cultivating Opportunities

Potential Opportunity Analysis (POA), a close relative to Potential Problem Analysis, is a powerful tool that can help you promote the best possible outcomes in every aspect of your life. KT (Kepner-Tregoe) founders Charles Kepner and Ben Tregoe described it this way:

“POA is a pattern of thinking that enables us to change and improve the future, rather than allow the future to arrive entirely on its own terms. This analysis is a protective and enhancing process through which we ensure that the future will be as good as we can make it.”

In a recent KT blog, the writer says POA explores two good questions to promote potential opportunities: “What could go better than expected?” and “What can we do now to make the most of it?”

This three step strategy can be used to explore and promote these “silver linings” using POA:

Potential Opportunity Analysis - 1. Identify potential opportunities 2. Identify Likely Causes 3. Take Action

While Covid 19 may have exploited some of our biggest weaknesses in education – like the equity gap and potential summer slide (also known as the “Covid-slide”); it also has given millions of teachers, students and parents the impetus (also known as baptism by fire) to embrace online teaching and learning.

Here is a simple example of applying Potential Opportunity Analysis to one opportunity that has resulted from the recent pandemic:

Step 1 – Identify potential opportunities- What decision, action, plan, or end result do I/we need to leverage?

How can we leverage the potential opportunities brought about by an increased understanding and comfort with online learning by students, teachers and parents?

Step 2: Identify likely causes- (besides Covid 19- what could cause an increase in student, teacher and parent understanding and comfort with online learning?)

One likely cause of an increased understanding of online learning is the offering of more opportunities/felt need and increased expectations for using online learning for all.

Step 3: Take Action- What can you do to promote or increase the chances teachers’, parents’, and students’ awareness, experience with online resources?

Increase awareness of online resources,
Offer “how to” videos and assistance,
Offer more opportunities for using online learning for both adults and children
Use online communication options for parent conferences, etc.

These simple actions are examples of how we can both promote and capitalize on the new skills that teachers, students and parents have acquired as schools quickly moved online.

A Note of Appreciation

There are many silver linings that have come out from our new normal including the well-deserved increased appreciation for educators and their resilience and adaptability. There is no doubt that the look and feel of education may change as we move forward, but the underlying caring and compassion of our educators will always be the driving force.