by Tim Grivois, Ed.D.
When used effectively, data accelerates your team’s progress. Get the most out of the data you and your team use by developing a solution-oriented relationship with data.
Connect data to goals you care about.
Developing your team’s solution-oriented data mindset depends largely on how well a solution-your data connects to goals that you and your team truly care about. Leaders who use data successfully frame data with the same language they use to describe the positive change they are working towards in every other part of their work. Simply put, unless the data you are using connects to something that matters, no graph, chart, or table will ever communicate something helpful.
Right now, much of the data that organizations use is often connected to someone else’s goals: percent passing on standardized tests, number of arrests made, and number of people registering for events are all common metrics established by someone outside of our direct influence. And, because most of my clients work in highly connected systems, they rarely have the luxury of simply ignoring data connected to other people’s goals. Often, teams can develop a solution-oriented mindset by exploring how conflicting goals might collide to form common ground.
For the times that ‘goal collisions’ don’t generate a synthesis, or when stakeholders are not ready to accept any alternative way of framing goals, you may have to accept temporarily that your team will have to work towards your own local goals while managing expectations of stakeholders with a different point of view. In the meantime, you and your team are the experts your work, context, and vision. If you want to enhance your team’s solution-oriented approach to data, connect your data to goals you truly care about.
Use the right kind of tools.
Data tools have different purposes, and achieving goals that matter typically involved recruiting multiple tools for screening, fidelity, diagnostic and outcomes.
Hammers are for nails. Spatulas are for pancakes. Do not flip pancakes with a hammer. As your team is deciding how to measure progress towards goals, make sure that the tools you adopt or develop match the purpose
Make a plan.
Once you’ve identified the tools you want to use, planning what you want to do is much simpler. Here are two examples of action plans based on solution-oriented data:
Get to work.
The most effective way of developing a solution-oriented mindset with data is for you and your team to take action. When you’ve developed your plan and your data tools, explain what strategies you want your colleagues to implement, what data they need to collect, and to whom to go. Train everyone with a role in the plan to implement identified strategies correctly as well as when and to whom they should report problems that come up.
Taking action is the most important part of having a solution-oriented relationship with data. And, when we connect data to goals we care about, use the right data tools, and create a plan to do something significant with our data, all the graphs and charts have meaning and import that they never would have had before.
Finally, never forget that behind every data point beats the heart of an actual human being. Ultimately, the purpose of any school, nonprofit, or agency is to be of service. With a solution-oriented approach, data can help us be of service to more people and with greater efficacy.