Solve your school’s challenges in 4 steps

Happy Friday Leaders,

When you are faced with a challenge in your school, what do you do? Quick reaction? Ask your team? Do you have a go-to process? Although we have all often read widely in leadership strategy and may know a few models, it can be hard to remember them without digging out your notes. 

That's why I love this model, created by the British Design Council. And yes, we are leaders, not designers, but hear me out. This model is simple, allows for full exploration of ideas, and always leads you to a clear solution. Intrigued?

Allow me to introduce the Double Diamond design method:

The Double Diamond has four stages:

1. Discover: This is where you start small (with your problem) and then extend your research as wide as possible. You need to gather insights, identify all potential problems, and understand your organisational and stakeholder needs.

2. Define: Now synthesise all those findings, reframe your challenge with this in mind, and define the scope of what you want to achieve.

3. Develop: Here is the second time we go wide. This is a time for generating ideas, creating pilots, and testing your potential solutions.

4. Deliver: We now bring in the solution. Start by refining the solution, then plan for implementation and launch.

While it can be tempting to move straight to the second diamond, and let's face it: we often do. The key is to fully explore both diamonds. This way, you will know that you are dealing with the right challenge.

I just love how simple this is and how easy it is to remember and visualise. That's why I've teamed up with the brilliant Efraim Lerner to develop a model using these principles that can help schools drive organisational change. We are passionate about giving power to schools to make their own organisational change. And this model is totally open-source.

You can see our early-stage development here, and we are looking for a team to help develop. If this is you, reply to this email and let's chat.

Have a great weekend,

Shane

Don't forget to check out the latest episodes of Global Ed Leaders. And if you are as passionate about coaching as I am, then you will love Coaching Done Well, conversations about coaching where, with my co-host, Jim Thompson, we talk to the biggest thinkers in educational coaching, including our latest with the coaching titan, Chris Munro.