“There is wisdom packed into the metaphor of educational progress being closer to the path of a butterfly than the flight of a bullet.” —Larry Cuban

As we consider a more effective way to approach the strategic planning process, we can pull from other approaches to teaching, learning, and design to establish a path forward. Integrating the concepts of backward design, and subsequently a design thinking approach to the strategic planning process, we experience a different path.

Backward design is a framework for designing courses and content. If we redefine the strategic planning process and it’s participants as learners in a course, we can consider the benefits of the backward design framework in this context. In their book, “Understanding by Design”, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe outline the backward design framework as a flipped alternative to the traditional method of lesson planning. Rather than planning activities (school investments), developing assessments (measurable outcomes), and then drawing connections to the learning goals (school outcomes), the backward design approach considers the learning goals (school outcomes) first. From there they establish what assessments will demonstrate an understanding of those gals (measurable outcomes) before determining how they will teach that content (school investments).

So where does design thinking come into play? Design thinking is non-linear, iterative, and collaborative approach that can be integrated into an overall backward design framework for creating the strategic planning process. Design thinking is a very customer centric way of solving problems through creative solutions. Design thinking involves five key steps: empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. Ultimately, design thinking allows individuals, or learners, to frame, or define, the right problem by empathizing with the customer (in a school’s case, the parent/teacher/student/etc.). Knowing the right problem allows the individuals, or learner, to ideate, prototype, and test to find the right solution.

Translating this to the strategic road map and strategic planning process, schools can use a design thinking approach within the backward design framework to begin with the end in mind before determining what investments need to be made in order to create the behaviors and characteristics that will be indicative of those outcomes and ultimately our vision for the school rather than beginning with the investments, or solutions. To do this, we have to empathize with our customers, or families, to define the problems we are trying to solve for them. This can then be reframed from a positive standpoint to articulate our desired outcomes. As we move into the solution finding part of the process, the group will begin to ideate and formulate a wide array of ideas before prototyping them to see if those solutions are worth investing more into to test them.

At the end of this process, the strategic road map becomes an adaptable plan that guides and supports the work of the school. Ultimately, it becomes a plan rooted in aspirational but relevant goals for our school community that maintains the flexibility to adjust rather than a long list of inflexible, albeit often well articulated, things to do.

“The danger is that we end up valuing what is measured, rather than that we engage in measurement of what we value” —Michael Peters

But what does this process actually look like?

“To understand what someone knows and is able to do, we must look not only to the inside of one’s head but to an activity system that will include relevant designed tasks, tools, talk, and structures of participation.”

With a specific “learning” outcome in mind, reframing the strategic planning process through a backward design framework integrated with the principles of design thinking, we have to rethink, or disrupt, the habits of our organization and the habits of our strategic planning.

To do this effectively, we have to examine the activities, resources, discourse, and historical/social norms of a different kind of process.