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Session 3. A Phased Roadmap and Sound Procurement
Objective. Draft a 12-month roadmap in four phases with owners and gates, choose between two offers with a weighted matrix and a three-year cost, and name the contract terms that protect the school: data export and deletion, price limits, a pilot period and local-language support.
A roadmap and a purchase are the places where good intentions meet money. Leaders face two dangers: a plan so detailed that it breaks in week three, and a purchase decided by a pleasant demonstration. This lesson goes beyond the key ideas. It shows how to keep a roadmap light enough to change, how to write gates that cannot be bent, and how to run a purchase decision so that you can explain it to a colleague, a parent or an auditor without embarrassment.
Key ideas
Four phases, one direction
- EEF's implementation guidance describes four phases: explore, prepare, deliver and sustain. Use them as the spine of your roadmap and give each phase months, an owner and a short list of outputs.
- A realistic cluster roadmap has months 1-2 explore, 3-5 prepare, 6-10 deliver as a pilot in a few schools, and 11-12 decide: scale, adapt or stop. EEF notes that complex changes can take several years, so 12 months is a first cycle, not the finish.
- Start small: two or three schools, one or two uses from the START zone. Spread only after the evidence says so.
Gates stop known problems travelling
- A gate is a short list of conditions that must be true before the next phase begins. Example gate before the pilot: a named data owner, a parent letter sent, a baseline recorded, a paper fallback tested, the readiness gap closed.
- Gates need a decider and a date, otherwise they are wishes. The decider is a person, not the vendor's schedule or the end of the budget year.
- Add a stop rule to every pilot gate: what would make us pause or end? The UNESCO policy guidance asks systems to pilot, monitor and evaluate before scaling.
Buy with a matrix, not a demonstration
- Course 11.7 gave eight questions for judging a claim. Now you choose between offers: list 5 to 7 criteria (for example learning evidence, Uzbek and Russian quality, data and exit, teacher control, offline use, cost), give each a weight that sums to 100, and agree the weights before anyone sees a price.
- Add a must-have gate: any offer that scores 1 out of 5 on data protection or exit is out until fixed, however strong its other scores.
- Have two or three people score alone, then compare. Large gaps show which criterion nobody understood the same way.
Three-year cost and contract terms
- Add everything over three years: licences, extra devices, connection, training time, support and exit. A free tool that needs new devices and a better connection is not free.
- Terms to ask for: export and deletion of school data in a fixed time; no use of pupil inputs to train models; a cap or notice on price rises; a pilot without automatic renewal; support in Uzbek and Russian; a named contact.
- Follow your official procurement rules and ask your education department's legal or procurement office to read any contract. A teacher or deputy head should not sign alone.
Roadmap phases and their gates
A light roadmap with firm gates
Write the roadmap on one page: four phases, months, one owner per phase and three outputs. Keep detail for the next phase only; later phases stay rough until the gate opens. Each gate has three parts: conditions, a decider and a date. Make conditions checkable by a stranger: 'parent letter sent in Uzbek and Russian' can be checked, 'parents informed' cannot.
Add a slow-down option as well as stop, because the right decision at a gate is sometimes 'extend this phase by a month'. Record each gate decision in two lines, so that when people change posts the history is clear and the next leader does not repeat the same mistakes.
A purchase you can explain
Before you contact any vendor, write what you need on a page: the problem, the pupils and teachers, the languages, the devices and connection you actually have. Ask two or three providers to answer the same page. Agree the criteria, the weights and who scores before the offers arrive, and keep the scoring sheets.
Declare conflicts: anyone who has accepted gifts or trips from a vendor does not score. Ask for a pilot period without automatic renewal and write down what evidence would make you buy. For public money, follow your official procurement rules and ask your legal or procurement office to read the contract. The matrix helps you decide, but it does not replace those rules.
Examples from the classroom
The forty-line plan
Scene. A district office near Jizzakh sends Dr Rustam a roadmap with 40 lines for 24 months. Within a month two schools lose three weeks to exams and the plan is ignored. Rustam trims it to one page with four phases and detail for the first two only. When exams hit again, the Prepare phase is extended by one month at the gate, the rest of the plan stays, and nobody feels the plan has failed.
Insight. A light roadmap bends at the gates without breaking.
Weights before offers
Scene. Dilnoza's team in Samarkand agrees criteria and weights on Tuesday and receives two offers on Friday. After the demonstration a colleague asks to raise the weight for 'modern design'. The team declines and keeps the weights. The offer that is stronger on data protection and Uzbek quality wins, and the head can show the sheet to the department the next week.
Insight. Fixed weights keep the choice fair and defensible.
A condition a stranger can check
Scene. Aziz in Bukhara first writes the pilot gate as 'parents informed'. A colleague asks how a stranger would check it. He rewrites it: 'letter sent in Uzbek and Russian, with a named contact, copy on file'. At the gate, the check takes two minutes and finds that the Russian version was never sent. It goes out the same day, before the pilot starts.
Insight. Checkable conditions turn gates from wishes into real controls.
Common pitfalls
- Writing a long roadmap that is out of date in a month.
- Writing gate conditions that nobody could check.
- Agreeing weights after seeing the offers or prices.
- Signing a contract on the strength of a demonstration and a discount.
Roadmap and Offer Comparison
- Open the Activity Kit: the roadmap template, SAMPLE Offer X and Offer Y with scores and costs, and five contract clauses (5 min).
- Pairs (15 min): fill the roadmap for one START use of the Chinor Cluster: four phases with months, owner, outputs and one gate with a stop rule.
- Pairs (15 min): compute the weighted score and the three-year cost of Offer X and Offer Y, then apply the must-have gate.
- Groups of four (10 min): decide which offer to take to a pilot, or whether to take neither, and write a three-sentence reason for the head.
- Part B (12 min): read the five contract clauses. Mark each OK or RED FLAG, say what you would ask for instead, and name who in your system should read the full contract.
- Alone (3 min): write your leadership task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Did the cheapest offer win? What did the must-have gate change?
- Which gate in your roadmap would you be most tempted to skip under time pressure, and what would that cost?
- Which clause would be hardest to win from a large vendor, and what is your fallback if you cannot?
Reflect
- Which past purchase in your school was made on a demonstration, and what did it really cost over three years?
- Who has the authority to sign for your school, and who should read before they do?
- What is your exit plan if the tool disappears tomorrow?
Try it tomorrow
- Rewrite one vague condition (for example 'staff trained') so that a stranger could check it.
- Write a one-page need statement for a tool you are thinking of buying.
- Put the date and decider on the next gate in your plan.
Further reading and links
Four phases, gates with a decider and a date, weights fixed first, a three-year cost, and contract terms that let you leave.