Consider everyone involved

Once you have drafted a plan with the time, tasks, and necessary resources, consider your “stakeholders.”

A stakeholder is a person with an interest, investment, or concern in something. What is “at stake” for teachers? You guessed it: time! By doing a stakeholder analysis, you can proactively think about the all-important “buy-in” piece of your long-term goals and plans.

Determining the degree to which certain groups’ interests will sway the success of your process needs to be considered throughout the project. Armed with this knowledge, you can proactively build buy-in with these groups based on their key motivators.

Make a list of the key stakeholders split across 2-3 groups (e.g. teachers, administration, parents and students). Analyse the groups’ power and impact.

“Power” refers to the sway a group has in the project, while the “impact” relates directly to the tasks that need to be accomplished. These two factors can be qualified as high or low. For example, if teachers are expected to map their curriculum, they have a high level of power and a high level of impact on the overall success of the curriculum mapping initiative.

List out key motivators and characteristics of the groups that have high power and impact. List the interests and incentives of your process that directly relate to the group’s interests. What changes can you make to your project to address their key concerns and ensure they benefit from their involvement?