Research School Network: Implementation Decisions: How can we manage the challenges? How challenging is the approach to implement?

Effective implementation relies on getting key decisions right, and a large number of these happen at the explore stage. The tool below, taken from the EEF’s Implementation guidance report, helps frame these decisions. In a series of blogs, we’re unpacking each quadrant. 

1: Implementation Decisions: Problems and Context

2: Implementation Decisions: What Does the Research Suggest?

In this blog, we’re looking at the bottom right box: How challenging is the approach to implement?

Even once we have identified what we see as the right approach to solve the right problem, we may find that what we are doing isn’t feasible. To help, the EEF ask us to reflect on the degree to which the approach is:

• Simple
• Well-specified
• Well-resourced
• Measurable
• Informed by known implementation ​‘pinch points’

If we come up short, it doesn’t mean that we should not do something.

If the intervention is not simple…

…we could find ways to reduce complexity. We could phase its introduction, perhaps by starting with one teacher, one phase etc. Not only can we see how feasible it is, but we can adjust as we see emerging barriers and enablers. Or we might implement one element e.g. only one new rule of a completely revamped behaviour policy (while keeping some old rules too!). We could delay the implementation to give more time for training, resourcing or simply to wait until there is more capacity.

If it is not well-specified…

…we can spend longer to unite clarity around the core components. This might mean going back to the evidence. Without these, every aspect, from training to monitoring, becomes much harder.

If it is not well-resourced…

…we can pause and create these resources. ​‘Resources’ can take many forms. The following list comes from the guidance:

• school structures such as timetables;
• logistics and processes, for example, data monitoring systems;
• resources such as funding and equipment;
• time, for example, allocating meeting time;
• policies, for example, MAT, local, or national policies; and
• roles, for example, implementation teams.

If it is not measurable…

…we can identify or create tools for monitoring, and add monitoring to our list of intervention activities. We might go back to our implementation plan as we may have identified a problem that is hard to measure. When the complexity of an approach makes things hard to measure, we might focus on implementation outcomes:

And if we are not sure of the possible pinch points…

…we can go back to our evidence or context to look for them. You can look at evaluations to see the kind of things that go wrong. For example, if you were looking at an intervention to support struggling readers, you could look at Catch Up Literacy and discover that ​‘TAs adapted how they delivered individual sessions from what they were taught in the training’ and then look at Switch-on Reading and read that ​‘some schools reported modifications to the prescribed content, duration and format of Switch-on sessions.’ This could lead you to put more effort into processes that ensure fidelity. 

By it’s very nature, change is hard. By identifying some of the challenges, we can make implementation more effective.