DTyers – Advance Consulting for Education

The Art of Being Disciplined: A Crucial but Misunderstood Necessity

Running an impactful, effective education organization takes discipline. Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, I can see you visibly cringe or bristle in response to the word discipline. Your reaction is understandable, given that in an education context discipline usually refers to punishment meted out to students who don’t behave in an accepted way […]

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Change versus the Misinformation Machine

Change Readiness and Management in Education / DTyers

Every society, organization or group has informal communication channels for the spread of information by those with informal power and influence. Informal communication channels can play a positive role in a group when used with integrity. They can serve as a glue to connect people with each other through shared stories and a shared understanding

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Change versus the Gossip Machine

Change Readiness and Management in Education / DTyers

I resisted the Netflix bandwagon for a long time, despite being the only person not in on the conversations about hit series like the Crown, Emily in Paris, and Bridgeton. I finally gave in to feelings of Fear of Missing Out and indulged in a subscription. And I got hooked on all of the shows.

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Planned Strategy versus Emergent Strategy

Education Business Excellence / DTyers

Planned strategy, as the term implies, is the end result of a lengthy consultative process with stakeholders about the organization’s direction and priorities. Planned strategy starts with articulating what the organization wants to be (usually called the vision) and how it wants to impact the world or its purpose (usually called the mission). These will

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Data is a Shared Responsibility

Using Data in Education / DTyers

When attempting to bring the use of data into education organizations, I have heard countless variations of the same basic statement, “Data is not my job”. I have heard this from team leaders who need data with which to make decisions, from those tasked with entering information accurately into a database or tracking tool, from

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What Makes a Good Education Business Process?

Process Optimization in Education / DTyers

The characteristics of a good process may seem obvious. Words like simple, clear, easy-to-follow, documented and efficient immediately come to mind. But let’s go beyond the obvious and look at characteristics that should be a part of our processes in our education organizations but very often are not. Our processes should create something of value

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A Lesson for Education Business Development from a Local Interlock Paving Company

Process Optimization in Education / DTyers

Answering a knock on the door I saw a young, fairly skinny man standing on my doorstep. Dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and steel-toed work boots, and wearing a pleasant, confident (but not arrogant) smile, he launched into his opening lines. “My company does interlock paving and repairs. I am going door-to-door in the neighbourhood

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“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

Change Readiness and Management in Education / DTyers

The above quote, from W. Edward Deming, one of the founding thinkers of continuous improvement, is brutally blunt. Yes, an organization (or a group or an individual) can put their heads in the sand, like ostriches, and ignore the change going on around them in the sector that they serve. But ignoring the change doesn’t

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When is a Strategic Plan not Strategic?

Education Business Excellence / DTyers

Most education organizations today have some kind of strategic plan in place to make it appear that they are moving in a planned direction. My use of the word “appear” is intentional. I have sadly seen too many strategic plans that are clearly just a pretty, glossy document used to say to stakeholders, “Look, we

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The Pain of Broken Processes

Process Optimization in Education / DTyers

Have you ever been left frustrated, fuming, or simply confused by an attempt to use a process from an organization for something that should be simple? And it turns out to be anything but? I wanted to book an appointment with a large service provider. I went on to their website and clicked on “Book

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