Change glorious change - why Agile is right for schools

A deputy head of a large rural primary school coming out of special measures recently described her working environment as one of continual crisis management. She talked about the way that they have to run the school pretty much on a week by week basis with continually changing priorities, an unstable staff base with a lot of absence and transience and with continual external interference.

A now ex-principle of a large academy school in London described the changing curriculum and increasing focus on creative, enterprise, innovative and project based learning as one in which teachers are now project managers as well as educators. He went on to describe the fact that projects have to cope effectively with continual flux in resources and with the time constraints of the timetable and therefore the notion that careful planning will somehow ensure success is a misnomer - it is the ability to deliver projects by coping effectively with continual change, reshaping and re-prioritising as you go that will ensure successful outcomes.

These two examples represent opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of school 'type' and current 'success status'. Yet despite this they both require internal process for leadership and management that can cope successfully with constant re-prioritisation, constant resource flux, limited time. They also need process that is light weight (teachers are time poor), easy to learn, flexible, works for external collaboration, is formalised enough that it can be reported upon and have success criteria built in, all of which is offered by Agile.

The following elements of Agile all map effectively onto the needs of schools:

1. Iterative working - by planning in terms of what can be achieved over a period of one month/half a semester/a term or whatever time segment works in terms of an individual school, Agile fits naturally with a school's 'heart beat'
   
2. Constant prioritisation - by recognising that demands on staff time and school priorities change on a term by term basis (or week by week in the case of a school on special measures), an approach that deals effectively with this is essential
3. Velocity - having a system built in that allows planning to respond effectively to constant change in time available to those delivering projects allows the project to fit the available time of those involved rather than the people having to fit the project and therefore massively reduces the risk of failure
4. Stories - the use of a narrative based needs and outcome communication approach allows Agile to work effectively as a planning and negotiation tool (particularly when used with inter-iteration re-prioritisation) with all stakeholders within a school community including governors, teachers, support staff, local authorities, partner schools and organisations, parents and pupils
5. Test-first - by determining how successful completion of tasks is to be recognised and negotiated before work begins, it becomes clear to understand what has been done and what hasn't and provide a clear progress reporting mechanism
   
6. Stand-up meetings - Agile works best with regular short meetings where people look at the stories they are working on, report on progress made and barriers encountered. These meetings can happen effectively in the coffee-length restrictions of break time, the 10 minutes available at lunch or before registration or before going home

This is just a sketch exploring how Agile would work in schools, but Agile grew out of the need for an approach that could deal effectively with constant change in needs and resource flux and does not allow these inevitable challenges to lead to failure. Therefore it would appear that Agile may well have a lot to offer school leadership and management.

What can Agile do for school management?

Having spent many years working on co-design and partnership projects with schools, I have become aware of the fact that schools in the UK, and particularly secondary schools, are in a constant state of flux. Even the best performing schools are continually managing change as handed down to them by government or because they get specialist status, being rebuilt or trying to become more outward facing through working in partnership with industry, cultural organisations, HE and FE. Then there are those schools that get entirely new management teams as they become academies or are working to get themselves out of special measures. These schools have to deal with change upon change and at times will feel like they are in constant crisis mode.

As Agile methodologies begin to be applied in new environments, it seems that schools are an obvious candidate as organisations that could really benefit from Agile. Some of the reasons for this are as follows:

• Constant change - as mentioned above, schools are continually working in an environment of constant flux and Agile is all about constant change.
  
• Lightweight processes - teachers are overworked and are resistant to anything that feels like additional management, administration or responsibility - Agile is simple and does not require reams of additional paperwork.
• Minimum iteration - in schools resources, particularly time, are scarce. Teachers will buy into a process and a project if they can see that it is delivering for them. Agile delivers results quickly and requires visible success criteria.
• Needs orientated process - the Agile use of 'stories' as a key concept used for defining goals and considering prioritisation is very useful for schools. Teachers often think in terms of 'need' and 'limitation' and both these are core elements of 'stories'.

Schools are expected to work in terms of projects more and more. Teachers need to be able to work together and with external organisations on project development and delivery in order to respond to the constant change that they are faced with. Agile is much more suited to the school environment than traditional project management approaches. It is flexible, easy to understand, lightweight and quick to implement, delivers visible outcomes quickly and responds effectively to constant change.