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Session 4. Managing Multiple Initiatives Without Overload
Objective. Inventory every initiative with its teacher-hours, score them with a simple rubric against the priorities, decide stop, merge, lighten or keep, map the load on individual teachers, stagger the starts and communicate a stop list respectfully.
Most schools do not suffer from too few ideas but from too many that are never retired. Teachers who look tired or resistant may simply be carrying five projects, each of which seemed sensible when it started. This lesson helps a leader decide what to stop, what to merge and what to keep, see the real load on each person, and stage new work so that no one is in the heavy part of three projects at once.
Key ideas
Why overload happens
- Initiatives pile up. Each has a good reason: a district campaign, a donor project, a teacher's idea, last year's plan. Nobody removes any, so every year the school carries more forms, meetings and events.
- An ASCD article describes a US district that listed more than 120 initiatives, scored them on cost, scale, evidence, effectiveness and fit with priorities, and narrowed them to 51. The method matters more than the numbers: look at everything, then decide.
- Overload is a leadership problem, not a staff weakness. A teacher who looks resistant may simply be carrying five projects. Research on school change notes that resistance can be reasonable when change feels harmful or disruptive.
Inventory, rubric, decision
- List every initiative on one sheet: where it came from, who does it, teacher-hours per month, evidence that it works here, whether it is mandatory and which priority it serves. Include the quiet ones such as a club or a report.
- Score each on fit with priorities (0 to 2), evidence (0 to 2) and workload (2 light, 1 medium, 0 heavy). A high total is kept; a middle total is merged or lightened; a low total is stopped, paused or handed over.
- Mandatory items cannot be stopped, but they can be done in the lightest compliant way, combined with another report or run once instead of three times. Honour promises to sponsors until they end, then do not renew without scoring.
Load maps and sequencing
- Count initiatives per person, not per school. A school with eight initiatives may have three teachers in five of them. Draw a simple map: teachers down the side, initiatives across the top, a tick where they overlap. Rebalance the heaviest rows.
- Stagger the starts. The EEF guide describes Explore, Prepare, Deliver and Sustain as stages. Do not let all initiatives enter the heavy Deliver stage in the same term, and give each a review date or an end date.
- Connect what remains into one story: 'This year we work on pupils' questions and feedback, and the peer observation, the notebook checks and the staff meeting slot all serve that.' Coherence feels lighter than a list of unrelated demands.
Saying no and stopping well
- Use a four-step way to say no to a new request: thank and name the value; test it against the priorities; offer an alternative such as later, merged or a small trial; give a date for the answer. A kind no beats a silent yes that is never done.
- Announce stops openly and with respect: say what is stopping, why, what people keep and what they gain back. Thank those who built the old initiative. People who feel their work was wasted will not trust the next plan.
- Show it yourself: stop one thing in your own work first. Track two simple workload indicators every term, the number of initiatives per teacher and the teacher-hours per month, and share them with staff.
Decisions for each initiative
Stop or pause
Low fit, low evidence, heavy
- Voluntary campaign with no results data
- Club that can restart led by pupils
- Sponsor project: finish, do not renew
Merge or lighten
Useful but costly or overlapping
- Peer observation joins pupils' questions
- Olympiad preparation shared
- Mandatory report combined with attendance count
Keep and protect
Serves a priority, light enough
- Absence follow-up routine
- Team slot for feedback
- Pupil questionnaire twice a year
Reading the inventory: stop, pause, merge, lighten, keep
The inventory gives you facts; the decision needs judgement. Distinguish a good idea from a priority: a school can think a club is wonderful and still not make it a priority this year. Ask four questions about each item: does it serve a current priority, is there evidence it works here, how many teacher-hours does it take, and is it mandatory or promised?
Not every decision is a stop. Pause hands the item back with a date to revisit. Merge combines two items that aim at the same thing, such as peer observation and work on pupils' questions. Lighten keeps the aim and cuts the effort, for example by sharing olympiad preparation among more teachers. Mandatory and sponsor items are kept in the lightest compliant form and are not renewed without scoring.
Coherence, stages and the three-task rule
Fewer items are only part of the answer. The rest should tell one story: 'This year we work on absence and on pupils' questions, and everything we do should serve one of them.' When an item cannot be linked to the story, that is a signal to review it.
Use stages to spread the load. The EEF guide separates explore, prepare, deliver and sustain; the heavy part is deliver. Do not let one teacher be in deliver for more than two items in a term, and put a simple cap, such as three active tasks per person, on the load map. When the cap is exceeded, move a task, delay a start or stop an item. Track the number of items per teacher each term and share it with staff.
Examples from the classroom
Twelve items in Chirchiq
Scene. A Chirchiq head lists twelve items on one sheet and scores each for fit, evidence and workload. Three score zero or one and are stopped. Two overlap and are merged. One mandatory form is cut to half a page. Staff see the sheet before the meeting. At the meeting the head says what each person gets back: fourteen teacher-hours a month in total. Two teachers who had run a stopped campaign are thanked by name for what they built.
Insight. A shared sheet and visible gains turn a list of cuts into a decision staff can accept.
The librarian who carried four
Scene. In Nukus the load map shows that the school librarian is on four initiatives: a reading campaign, a sponsor project, the Grade 9 report and the olympiad. No one had counted because each task seemed small. The head moves the reading campaign to a team of three teachers and asks the sponsor for a lighter report. The librarian now has two tasks and says she has time to help pupils choose books.
Insight. Counting initiatives per person, not per school, shows who carries the weight.
A kind no in Qarshi
Scene. The district asks a Qarshi school to join another reading competition. The head thanks the officer for thinking of the school, says the school's time this year goes to absence and pupils' questions, offers to join next autumn and to send two pupils to the final, and promises an answer by 20 October. The officer replies that this is fine. Two teachers are spared a task that would have appeared on their plates in the first week.
Insight. A kind no with an alternative and a date protects the priorities and the relationship.
Common pitfalls
- Scoring every initiative 'keep' because each has a friend in the staffroom.
- Stopping things by memo with no thanks, so people feel their work was wasted.
- Counting initiatives per school and missing the two or three people who carry most of them.
- Starting all new work in the same term, so everything is in the heavy delivery stage together.
Inventory, Score, Rebalance and Announce
- Trios (5 min): open the Kit. The sample school (520 pupils) runs nine initiatives (Table A) beside its two new priorities. The staff are tired. You are the leadership team and have one hour to decide what to do with each.
- Trios (15 min): score each initiative with the rubric (Table B): fit with the two priorities, evidence, workload. Add the totals and propose stop, pause, lighten, merge or keep. Mark mandatory and promised items separately.
- Trios (15 min): use the load map (Table C) to count active initiatives per teacher before and after your decisions. Find the most overloaded person, move one task to someone with room, and check that no teacher has more than three.
- Trios (10 min): place the keepers on a four-term timeline (Table D) using the stages Explore, Prepare, Deliver, Sustain. No more than two initiatives may be in Deliver for the same teacher in the same term. Give each an end or review date.
- Part B (15 min): write the staff message announcing what stops, what merges and what the school will focus on (about 150 words). Then draft a four-step 'kind no' (Table E) to a district request to join one more campaign.
- Staff role play (10 min): one person reads the message as the head; another plays a teacher whose club has been paused: 'So all my work was for nothing?' The head answers. Swap once. Note which words helped and which hurt.
- Alone (15 min): write your leadership task from the Kit: how you will inventory the initiatives in your own school or cluster, the rubric you will use, what you will stop first and the date you will bring back your inventory and load map.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which initiative was hardest to stop, and was that because of evidence, tradition or a person?
- What did the load map show that the list did not?
- Which words in the announcement kept dignity and which would have made a teacher feel dismissed?
Reflect
- What is the oldest initiative in your school that nobody has questioned, and who started it?
- Which colleague carries the most initiatives and has never said no?
- What have you personally stopped doing this year to make room for the priorities?
Try it tomorrow
- List every initiative and regular meeting in your school on one sheet with teacher-hours and who does it.
- Draw a load map for six teachers and note anyone with more than three active tasks.
- Write a three-sentence kind no to one current request, with thanks, a reason tied to priorities and an alternative with a date.
Further reading and links
Inventory everything, score it against the priorities, count the load per person, stagger the starts and announce stops with respect: fewer things done well lifts results and morale.