Use Projects to Manage Change and Develop Leaders

The best way to manage an innovation and improvement agenda is to break it into a connected series of projects and launch them in phases. Projects can be managed by emerging leaders—anyone in the organization that has expressed the interest and ability to handle broader responsibilities. Managing projects can be a great way to practice facilitation and leadership skills.
“It is a very cool way to spread the message about managing a 21st-century workflow in the organization, and resets the thinking of the adults to be aligned to the instructional shifts tied to project-based learning implementations,” said David Haglund, deputy superintendent in Santa Ana USD.
Haglund provided five examples of using projects to execute strategy and develop leaders:

• Kim Garcia, Curriculum Specialist, charged with developing the Advanced Learning Academy’s academic program. She was given a huge amount of freedom and support to “build the school,” and has since become the school’s first principal. That school expands into high school in the fall as an early college program and will share space with Santa Ana College.

• Wes Kriesel, Program Specialist, was charged with developing our new hybrid courses for high school students. He recruited a team (Team 21C) to tackle that work and has been engaging crowd-sourcing and other innovative strategies to drive the work flow. They have used blogging and “live” community sessions to engage a wider set of stakeholders in the development process.

• Daniel Allen, Executive Director, was charged with coordinating the work of district management team members to address six “problems of practice” identified during a student panel at the annual manager’s symposium. Those groups have been working collaboratively this school year to address issues related to growth mindsets, personalized learning plans, the use of technology to support personalization, expanding access to meaningful extracurricular programs, critical thinking, and restorative practices. He blogs about his learning experiences to demonstrate his learning progression.

• Suzie Lopez, Community Relations Specialist, was charged with resetting the District’s image in the community and improving efforts to “tell our story.” She and a team of teachers and administrators worked to promote school choice by helping principals brand and market their schools in ways that were meaningful to the community. Their most recent School Choice Faire in October drew in several thousand community members to a festive event held in Downtown Santa Ana. The City closed off three blocks for the day and every school hosted booths and highlighted student performers at a central stage.

• Mark Chavez, Director of Food Services, heard students’ frustrations about food quality during student Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) sessions and responded by creating a food tasting event during which vendors were able to share their recipes, and students/parents voted on what to add to the school lunch menu.

“In each case, the issues were identified as needs in our LCAP and the efforts were geared at driving a collaborative approach to problem-solving that included managers, staff, parents, students and community members,” added Haglund.

Three more school district examples also demonstrate project success and talent development:

• An assistant high school principal managed a personalized learning communication campaign that shares the district vision and student success stories to support improved deployment and community investment. (The project led to a principalship and a career focused on supporting school communities developing next generation schools).

• A high school guidance counselor led a district-wide work-based learning project that resulted in business partnerships and extended student learning opportunities (and created a new role for the project lead as district communications manager).

• A maintenance manager led a district-wide process improvement strategy that resulted in savings and improved service delivery in many areas (and became Facilities Director and built a new generation of schools).

Assigning project management to emerging leaders is a great way to distribute leadership, manage change and develop leadership.
For more see:

• It’s a Project-Based World: A Thought Leadership Campaign
• Preparing Students for a Project-Based World
• Preparing Teachers for a Project-Based World

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