The Science of Implementation

School districts and other organizations that serve young children don’t have time or money to waste on programs or resources that do not produce positive, sustainable outcomes. Essentially, what we know works is often not used to achieve intended student benefits. Research shows that roughly 70% of all organizational change projects fail, even when existing practices aren’t working. Most of these failures are attributed to human dynamics. Any new initiative or program has two aspects that must be addressed for successful implementation: technical (tools, processes, management) and human (awareness, impact, buy-in). Most organizations focus on their efforts on the technical side of implementation when the greatest risk for failure is on the human side. The most common individual response to change is resistance and the culture of a school or organization can contribute to or reduce that resistance. Time and attention must be given to robust stakeholder preparation in order to achieve meaningful change. For example, we can train educators how to use an evidence-based EF tool aligned with defined student outcomes, but if they do not know the change is coming and understand the “why” behind the need to alter their practice, attaining buy-in and long-term commitment is unlikely.