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Session 4. Quick Wins, Milestones and the Dip
Objective. Choose quick wins that are real, stage a rollout with gate rules agreed in advance, tell a normal implementation dip from a design flaw using pulse data, and support staff through the dip.
The middle of a change is where most of them are lost. The excitement of the launch is over, the skills are not yet there and the old way is still available. This session helps you plan for that middle: how to read a few simple numbers each week, how to support people so the dip is short, and when to slow down because the load is too heavy. Leaders who expect the dip lose fewer changes than those who are surprised by it.
Key ideas
Quick wins that are real
- A quick win is a visible, believable result within about four to eight weeks that people connect to the change. It keeps energy up and answers the doubt 'will this ever work?' It must be real: a poster or a launch event is not a win. A win might be one class where pupils now say what to improve, or a form that now takes two minutes instead of ten.
- Test a candidate with five questions: Is it visible to staff or pupils? Is it clearly linked to the change? Is it cheap and quick? Is there evidence (a number or a piece of work)? Does it make someone's day easier? Removing an irritation, such as a clerk now printing the forms, is often the best early win.
- Celebrate with the people who did the work and say what they did. Beware of declaring victory too soon: Kotter's seventh step is to keep up the pace after early wins, using each one to take on the next harder part. A leader who withdraws support after the first good results often sees the gain disappear.
Milestones and gates: move in stages
- Course 14.4 (School Improvement) taught how to write a milestone with a product, a date and one owner. Here we add pace. A large change moves in stages: prepare (weeks 1-4), pilot with one team (a term), review, extend one grade at a time, embed. Each stage has a different job and a different group.
- Put a gate between stages: criteria agreed BEFORE the pilot starts, so nobody argues afterwards. For example: 'At least 6 of 8 pilot teachers use the routine weekly, the time stays within the 60 minutes we promised, and pupil evidence moves in the right direction.' The gate has three answers: go, adapt and repeat, or stop.
- Pace to readiness, not to the calendar. If the pilot team is not ready, a firm date for everyone is a promise you cannot keep. Tell staff the dates of the gates, not only the dates of the start. Use the PDSA cycle (plan, do, study, act) at every stage so each is a test and a learning step, not just an order.
The dip: expect it and name it
- Michael Fullan called it the implementation dip: when people start using new skills, performance and confidence often fall before they rise. A teacher who marked quickly now takes twice as long; pupils are confused; a good lesson becomes an awkward one. The dip is normal in many changes, which is why leaders plan for it instead of being surprised.
- William Bridges described the inner side: an ending (letting go of the old way), a neutral zone (confusing, tiring, lower motivation) and a new beginning. Mark endings clearly, for example 'from this term the old weekly report is closed.' In the neutral zone give short temporary structures, such as a ten-minute check-in each week, and say that being slower for a while is expected.
- Tell a dip from a flaw. In a dip, numbers recover as people practise; in a flaw, the cost stays high even with practice. Use a weekly pulse check of three numbers (how many teachers did it, time it takes, one pupil measure) and one question: 'Is it manageable?' A flat or falling line after practice means redesign, not more pressure.
Support that works through the dip
- Give time first, taken from something else (course 14.4 on teacher-hours). Then practice with others: paired work, a 15-minute visit to a colleague's lesson (course 11.9, Peer Observation), a short coaching conversation (course 14.8, Coaching & Mentoring Systems). Then simple tools: a one-page template, a sample, a checklist.
- Be visible. Walk through, ask 'how is it going?' and listen to the answer. Say that you will also find it hard. Respond to the pulse check within a week with 'you said, we did', even if the answer is 'we cannot change that, here is why'. Staff forgive slow progress more easily than silence.
- Watch workload and wellbeing. A change that is 'only 20 minutes a week' for each of three initiatives is an hour. Decide in advance what you will stop, what you will pause, and what the gate rule is for stopping the whole change. Stopping a change that does not work, with honesty, protects trust in the next one.
Illustrative shape of an implementation dip (not real data)
A pulse check that takes five minutes
Choose three numbers and one question, and keep them the same every week so the trend is clear. For example: how many of the pilot teachers did the routine this week; how many minutes it took the average teacher; one pupil measure from a quick exit ticket; and 'is it manageable: yes or no?' Collect them on a slip of paper or at the end of the Wednesday meeting; tally on a wall chart that everyone can see.
Read the trend, not one week. A first-week fall in the 'manageable' count is expected. What matters is the direction after four to six weeks, and whether the cost number (minutes) is within what you promised. Share the chart with staff and answer in a sentence: 'you said it takes too long; we cut the sheet from two sides to one.'
Pacing change through the school year
Change load is not even through the year. Examination weeks, the end of term, holidays such as Navruz, school inspections and the weeks before reports are heavy. Mark these on a one-page calendar before you set gates. Place the launch after a quiet period, place the first review at a quiet point and avoid launching a second change in the middle of the dip of the first.
Pair every start with a stop. If you add a 20-minute weekly routine, name a 20-minute task that ends, and say so on the date. Leaders sometimes feel this signals weakness; staff read it as respect. When the pulse shows overload ('manageable' falls below half), take the first action on the load, not on the teachers: shorten the routine, widen the deadline, or pause for two weeks.
Examples from the classroom
A wall chart in Samarkand
Scene. Malika, a deputy head in Samarkand, pins a chart of three numbers in the staff room after Wednesday's meeting. In week 3 it shows only 4 of 8 pilot teachers did the routine and 'manageable' at 2 of 8. She says nothing about blame; she asks the group what to cut. Teachers suggest dropping the second side of the sheet. By week 6 the chart shows 7 of 8 and 'manageable' at 6, and the staff say 'the chart is the only paper we trust'.
Insight. Visible numbers plus a quick response make a dip shorter.
Closing the old register in Tashkent
Scene. A Tashkent school moves homework recording from a paper notebook to a shared sheet. Before the start, the head holds a ten-minute 'closing' at the Friday meeting: teachers hand in their old notebooks to the deputy, who stamps them 'closed' and shelves them. Two teachers say they felt sad to close it. The head says that is normal and that for three weeks the sheet will be allowed to be slow, with help from a teacher volunteer each afternoon.
Insight. An ending that is marked clearly makes the neutral zone easier to cross.
Slowing down for exams in Fergana
Scene. In Fergana, the pulse in week 5 of a pilot shows 'manageable' at 3 of 8. The calendar shows that Grade 9 mock examinations fall in weeks 6 and 7. The head, Aziz, says: 'We pause the extension for the two exam weeks. Pilot teachers keep their own class routine at half length, and we meet again on the 14th.' Two teachers who were close to giving up stay, and the extension starts three weeks later than planned.
Insight. Slowing down for a known heavy period is a design decision, not a failure.
Common pitfalls
- Collecting pulse numbers and never answering them, so staff stop reporting honestly.
- Treating every fall in numbers as proof of failure, or every fall as 'only a dip' with no check.
- Celebrating a quick win in a way that makes the colleagues who are struggling feel behind.
- Launching a second change in the middle of the first one's dip.
Choose the Win, Set the Gate, Read the Dip
- Pairs (10 min): open the Activity Kit. Table A lists six candidate quick wins for the sample feedback-comment policy. Score each 0-2 on the five questions, choose the best two, and reject the one that is only decoration.
- Trios (15 min): Table B is a staged rollout of the same policy for 30 teachers. Fill the gate criteria for the pilot and extension stages (numbers, time, pupil evidence) and write what happens if a gate is not passed: adapt and repeat, or stop.
- Trios (20 min): Table C gives six weeks of pulse data from two sample pilots, A and B. For each, decide: dip or flaw? Persist, adapt or pause? Write the message you would give staff in three sentences, with one thing you will take away.
- Part B, alone (25 min): for a real change in your school fill the six-week plan in Table D: one quick win with its evidence, the first gate with numbers agreed now, the weekly pulse (three numbers and one question), the supports you will offer, one thing you will stop and the date you will report back.
- Pairs (10 min): a two-minute 'you said, we did' report. Read your sample pulse results aloud as if at a staff meeting and say what you heard, what you change and what you cannot change. The partner notes if any sentence sounds defensive.
- Alone (5 min): write your leadership task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which quick win looked good but was only decoration, and how can you tell the difference in your school?
- What gate criteria did you find hard to agree on, and who must agree them before the pilot?
- When did you last ask a team for numbers on a change, and what did you do with the answer?
Reflect
- What happened in your school the last time a good start was followed by a difficult middle?
- Which old routine will you officially end so that the new one has room?
- Do your staff believe that you will stop a change that does not work?
Try it tomorrow
- Write the three numbers and one question for the pulse of your next change, and decide who collects them and on which day.
- Mark on a one-page calendar the heavy weeks of this term, and move one launch or gate date away from them.
- Choose one old routine to close officially, with a date and a short 'closing' at a staff meeting.
Further reading and links
Pick wins that are real, agree the gate before the pilot, and use weekly numbers to tell a dip from a flaw.