2. Who started it – a sliver of historyBetter learning outcomesAchieving them – paths What is innovation? Innovation at three levels – teaching, schools and education systemsThe Platform for guiding and benchmarking innovationThe trial Case studies A pioneering leader A turnaround challenge A culture in transitionEvaluation of the Platform DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 2
3. Fifty years ago the Government of Finland decided to focus on two things to secure its nation’s future wellbeing: innovation and education. Finland today is a testament to the wisdom of its decisions. DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 3
5. Paths More of the Same Quality More and Better ContinualImprovement Something Different Innovation DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 5
6. Innovation is not yet well understood. The difference between innovation conceived as a strategic, systematic and system-wide activity and innovation as a sporadic, haphazard, “risky, but great when it happens” phenomenon is rarely considered. DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 6
7. a wonderful surprise applying ideas!finding and applying knowledge and ideas to create value DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 7
8. Levels Dr Betty Edwards DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 8
9. Levels Courtenay Gardens Primary School At Courtenay Gardens, everyone is a star! We are extremely fortunate to have our very own student-run, school-based television program called "The Morning Show!“ Our Grade 5 and 6 students broadcast the show LIVE each morning from our state-of-the-art multimedia studio DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 9
10. Levels PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEMS the distinguishing features of DEECD’s transformational strategy“The presence of a strategic view of school improvement”. “a focus on human capital”“The human capital focus inverts the usual bureaucratic pyramid and puts state and regional officials in the role of managing the resources necessary to create conditions for learning at the school and classroom levels, rather than attempting to improve the performance of schools by telling them what to do.” Professor Richard Elmore DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 10
11. The Platform self-assessment & benchmark tool for schoolstraining for facilitatorsMiii - psychometric toolworkshops DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 11
12. The Model Strategic Management Capabilities and functionally similar Strategic Innovation Management Capabilities DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 12
19. almost any time, any place “lite” assessment for principals360⁰ for school leadership teamshalf-day or 3 weekly sessions; on-site or remote facilitation DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 19
21. A pioneering leader DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 21 School slogan: “A school that is shaping the future” a perfect expression of what innovative organisations do change fatigue energising innovation more than 200 visits a year
23. A pioneering leader Three years ago when we first looked at doing what we wanted to do we scanned locally and globally and could only find pockets of similar practice, and most of these pockets were in secondaries. As a result we had to create a lot of our curriculum model ourselves. We now have an open space program that is more structured than a traditional classroom. (and yet) Every day the teachers interface with the kids and when they do something different its research in the making. As a result some part of the program morphs every one or two months DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 23
24. A turnaround challenge part of a large-scale reorganisation involving several schoolsextensive building program administrative, organisational and curriculum modernisation. 5 years - promises, promises... non-listening consultation“pervasive silo mentality”ad hoc improvement projects – “no link to school directions”denial and blind spotsICY data “consistent with data from every other measure of the school” DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 24
26. A culture in transition “good staff who teach in traditional ways”“victim and blame culture” integrated learning project for all year 7 and 8 “shared ownership of content”two years work on organisational health “scores in staff opinion surveys dropped”coaching roles reversednow: new leadership team + staff focus on learning outcomes DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 26
27. A culture in transition DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 27
28. Evaluation summary Provides effective benchmarks for Innovation Capability Tracks Innovation Capability developments Identifies professional learning needs Promotes discussion and coherence in leadership teams in relation to strategy and innovation DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 28
29. Principals said... The benefit for me was the reaffirmation that we were going in the right direction. The most valuable part of the exercise was to see that we were in sync – it was an affirmation. The tool actually forces you to think and reflect on what it is that is actually happening, not what you think is happening. It throws up those moderating conversations that you have with the other members of the leadership team that allows you to achieve more clarity about what is happening. The tool covers areas not covered by other performance measures and asks you to think differently. DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 29
30. Principals said... ICY is asking you to consider the things that would help you to accelerate improvement. DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 30
31. Next Educational leaders enrich performance measures and improvement processes with tools that: help principals to build innovation capability accelerate the diffusion of best practicesDownload the full paper from www.innovationoracle.com DISCIPLINED INNOVATION 31
Editor's Notes
Introduce MyselfI’m from Melbourne, Australia although for the last ten years most of my work was in Europe. Background in change management in the welfare sector and in business, including lecturing in business management and innovation and innovation metrics.SOMETHING CONVERSATIONAL
Words like improvement and innovation are used loosely in every day conversation...But precision is needed to measure and benchmark innovation and its contribution to better outcomesThis paper teases out the different paths to improvement - or improvement methods: quality – continual improvement and innovationInnovation, the least well understood path,is illustrated with stories and examples in the first half of the paper, and the second, where the trial of the Platform is described...
When Finland decided to focus on education and innovation as national priorities the two were separate areas... Since them the meaning of innovation had broadened from R&D&C to innovation across products, services, processes and organisational designs. Innovation is now a part of the educational improvement landscape.McKinsey report written by Sir Michael Barber fits the definition of innovation as offering a new dimension of value – it was the first to link, on a global scale qualitative OCED data and quantitative insights on what high performing schools and school systems have in common.
The Australian Finance Minister wrote recently that “imagination and innovation are the elements of human capital that are most critical to competitive success in the global economy.Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.Parents and societies want more than the 3R’s – they children to learn to have initiative, to think critically and to think creatively.... These aspirations put, or should put, innovation on the stage together with traditional teaching and educational improvement methods
There are three types of purposeful change - mos /m&b/sdMOS underlies the field known as quality managementmaintaining consistent standards of service deliveryM&B describes Continual Improvement – the data driven methods and mindsets originally pioneered by Edward Demming.. His ideas were innovative 50 years agoInnovation is a process but as a noun its something new, different and more valuable that the thing it replacesIn the 21st century all three are required to sustain high performance school systems.
It is not surprising that innovation is not yet well understood and often times not well managed. Without hands-on experience and some reflection managers who manage change and especially innovative change fly half blind. The Platform trialled by the Victorian Education Department clears away a lot of the fog.
Definition applies at any scale, ( idea in the morning – tricky problem solved in the evening to long term R&D) and any part of any organisation...Knowledge = research and developmentFinding – could be extended with words like creating, discovering, generating, inventing and so on... Ideation is the term now used to describe any stage but especially the early stages of innovation processes where people play seriously with ideas...
Forty years ago art teachers believed that drawing skill depended on inborn talentA thoughtful young teacher called Betty Edwards was assigned the job of bringing students up to speed on drawing at Venice High School in San Francisco Betty struggled to find the difference between the fast and slow students. One day on impulse she asked her students to copy a Picasso drawing upside down. To everyone’s surprise the drawings were extremely well done. As a result of her continuing experiments and research her approach is now used by drawing teachers in many countries. Until retirement - Professor at California State Uni + 3 million copies..Illustrates entire innovation process...
In 2006 the Principal of CG PS , Loretta Hamilton led the development of a Non-Fiction and Multimedia Writing Program based on the landmark research of Dr Douglas Reeves. Reeves had researched high performing schools in low income urban areas in the USA. DEECD supported C-G with funds for new multi-media facilities, providing new writing and communication tools. The school demonstrated improved student learning outcomes and its program is already being transferred to twenty nearby schools. The School recently won the 2009 Victorian Education Excellence Award for Curriculum Innovation. Globally this innovation was part of the diffusion of the application of Dr Reeves findings. Within Australia it was a first. This example illustrates the Principal’s leadership role and the value of well managed incremental innovation. The change was not radical and it was easy to understand. In this case it enables teachers to rapidly close performance gaps in student learning outcomes and it had been easy for other schools for adopt, enabling faster diffusion.
Richard Elmore is Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.The VED invited him to observe the implementation of its transformational strategy over three years. These quotes are from his 2007 report. Innovation wont bloom without attention and resources from the top – UK Innovation Unit VED – INP branch and programsDEECD is a big bureaucracy but its investment in local and regional leadership and in PD of teachers is huge and the focus on improvement, innovation and thoughtful change management by principals and teachers is a like a breath of fresh air compared with other government departments
This slide introduced the PlatformIts know as WAVE, although VED renamed the main component and the subject of the trial, the assessment, ICY
There are hundreds of tools that measure and assess organisational abilities, health and performance.The ICY tool is unique because of the model behind itThere are few tools that focus on STRATEGIC management capabilities, even less that cover Innovation Management and no others that cover the two areas with an integrated model.
For simplicityWhen facilitators introduce the tool they show managers the list of the six Foundation capabilities. Managers readily agree that the capabilities are important and that the list makes senseFacilitators then reveal the functionally similar Innovation capabilities, and thus provide a bridge for managers to see what is required to get great results from time and money devoted to innovation.
Questions on School characteristics – No staff, location, etcexternal trends – demand, competition,Strategic assets ( long term capabilities: buildings, talentedinnovation projectscapabilities
REPORTFoundation scores – blueinnovation scores – pinkDotted lines are high level benchmarks – median scores for all 1440 organisations in the data base Interpretation guidelinesat the measures are sufficiently accurate for their current purpose in schools and further research is likely to increase their accuracy..
Second part of REPORTTrends over time ( annual...)10 PRIORITY ORDERED RECOMMENDATIONSUSERS ARE INVITED TO DISCUSS AND RE-PRIORITISE THE RECOMMENDATIONS- THEY MAY ALREADY BE WORKING ON SOME- THERE ARE LOCAL FACTORS THE INSTRUMENT DOES NOT KNOW ABOUTAfter leadership teams have done so
IMPLEMENTATION GUIDES4 PAGES WITH APPENDICES OF UP TO 15 PAGESINTRODUCTIONROOT CAUSE ANALYSISTIPSTOOLSLINKS TO OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES
A feature of the tool is its versatilityDescribe the 3 session 360.Two other features are important- the philosophy behind the design of the tool emphasises self directed learning, action-learning and action –research. It is consistent with the spirit if not the requirements of innovation- The tool helps school and school systems to contain risk
All reformers and innovators face trialsThis trial had a start and stop beginning early in 2008, and then gained momentum. Most of the first batch of 360 assessments were not undertaken until December 08Then after just 7 aformative evaluation was commissioned. Assessments are about to be used on 30 schools as part of a demonstration program of the Innovation and Next Practice Division.
This school took part in the trials and was a delight to visit. The fist thing that struck me was the quality of the operatic music being piped throughout the school during the recess break when I arrived.Quote SLOGAN + perfect expression...anticipate change and scan for leading practices as part of reacting proactively and creatively to the social and technological changes in their environment. The Principal had created an environment at the school where change and innovation is positively energising
When aggregated to a single indicator School A has the highest scores of all 1440 organisations in the database. The ICY profiles for School A are almost horizontal and all scores are over 80%, showing very high and evenly distributed capabilities and suggesting near optional performance. The lowest scoring capability was administration, including financial and risk management, with a score of 81% that still places it in the top five percent of all administration capability scores in the database.
Here are the words of the Principal
Over the last 5 years School B suffered from a combination of ordinary, perhaps poor leadership; high uncertainly and confused expectations about its future;and when commitments to modernisation were finally made, a consultation process that – at least from the point of view of the teachers – was alienatingSix months ago a new principal was appointed – he had few positive things to say about the previous leadership – and while he has the excitement of new buildings and curriculum programs he has a huge challenge giving teachers a reality lesson while simultaneously building their skills, changing attitudes and building morale.Quote comment on scores from the assessment...
Higher scores for opportunity scan and opportunity grow –reflect the work of the new leadership team over the four months before the assessment, as does the slightly higher scores for strategy.
The story of School C, illustrates the choppy waters that leaders navigate when they have to change cultures that are tired or dysfunctional and that no longer support high performance. I interviewed the Principal six weeks ago at a time when she felt that the tide had turned in the last few months. A new six person leadership team was in play and all members were rowing enthusiastically in the same direction... + staff could feel and were in the process of verifying the value of the major innovation initiative – an integrated learning project for almost half the students in the school + leadership training and PD were continuing ... This is a school that is likely to produce marked improvements in learning outcomes over the next few years
The ICY profiles for School C show above average capabilitiesThis relatively level FOUNDATION (BLUE)profile indicates that while there is plenty of scope to improve, performance is balanced across the capabilities. While marketing has the lowest score, the principal sees it as a lower priority than continuing to improve management and operationsthe momentum gained and ongoing skill development will improve the management, leadership and operations or service delivery scores, and the consequent student learning outcome scores over the next few years.
The Victorian Education Department wanted to know, sooner rather than later, how well the assessment process did four things – listed aboveIn brief, after the evaluators examined the tool, observed the assessment process and interviewed the principals from participating schools her answer was “very well”
Here are some of the comments from the Principals of the three case study schools
Here is another comment that I want to highlight...Again, this comment reflects the views of other principals who were interviewed. Last year DEECD set up regional or local networks, each lead by a new network leader; each with a brief to develop an improvement plan and each with around 20 schools.Referring to these networks, the evaluator wrote“Several principals spoke about the potential value of using ICY in regional network groups and sharing data and strategies to support improvements in innovation capabilities”
I am very pleased to find that the Principal’s views reflected the purpose of ICY and the broader Platform.Thank you