• A key to high quality implementation is whether the critical "drivers” are in place. Implementation drivers fall into three categories: Competency, Organization, and Leadership.

  • Competency drivers help to develop, improve, and sustain the ability to implement an “intervention,” or strategy, to benefit students. Competency drivers include selection of the right strategy, initial training, on-going coaching, and performance assessment, also known as monitoring.

  • Organization drivers create and sustain organizational environments and systems for effective educational services and include a data system that supports decisions, administration that facilitates and supports implementation, and strong systems.

  • Neither of these two drivers could operate successfully without the third driver, that of Leadership, including both technical leadership (leadership for the technical aspects of the implementation and adaptive leadership (leadership for the relational aspects of implementation).

• Monitoring of fidelity should be guided by the critical components of a strategy implementation guide. Such a guide defines the critical components of strategy implementation, as well as what it looks and sounds like to put them into practice. If such a guide does not already exist as part of strategy design, one of the first tasks during installation should be its development, as well as development of a fidelity monitoring tool aligned to the guide. This guide and tool will allow individuals, professional learning communities, building improvement teams, and others to monitor within and across the plan.

• Both implementation fidelity and impact monitoring data should be collected at the building level and brought back to the district team for use in determining whether adjustments are needed at the building or district level.

• Monitoring data should also inform questions about movement between implementation stages. For example, what does the data say about when to move from installation to initial implementation? from initial implementation to full implementation? back to a previous stage? Should the entire district move at one time or do timeframes vary by building?

• It is also critical that a district monitor the effectiveness of its systems as part of implementation. Implementation is frequently impacted by the presence or lack of strong systems to support it. This necessitates returning to the systems framework and aligned tools being used by the district and asking questions such as “Are the necessary systems components in place? How might the status of the systems be impacting implementation and impact? What kind of adjustments need to be made to either install or strengthen them?”

Stages of Implementation