Integrating Drivers of "Excellence at Scale"

In this article, I intend to share how we are attempting to integrate the Drivers of "Excellence at Scale" in our operations model.

In government approved programs, most teachers attend trainings because not doing so may attract penalty. No matter what the program, such attendance will never translate into Adoption and Attendance that does not translate into Adoption counts for nothing. It is but a mere record in our annual reports with ZERO consequence on the mission end-state. A key question then becomes,

         What's the least that we can achieve from such non-productive Attendance?        

Provided there is INTENT i.e. teachers come to training programs with an intention to learn, the least we can achieve is "CAPACITY BUILDING". By the end of the training program, if teachers have learnt something new (a new concept, a new teaching methodology, a new technique) then they go back knowing more! So, how do we make this happen?

• Our techniques that allow a teacher to teach English in the mother tongue are so easy that one has to try extremely hard to not understand them.
• Our training programs are called Exposure Sessions. The objective is to demonstrate the simplicity of our entire product in the shortest possible time thereby invoking a desire to try. Continuous iterations have helped bring down our session time to 135 minutes.

Thus, OUR MILESTONE #1 is CAPABILITY: In simple terms, Every regional language school teacher in the country is trained & certified to teach English using our techniques. This milestone will easily be equivalent to a few million teachers and could position us at the top of the Scale metric; but in reality, it has very limited bearing on the mission end-state; we deliver only when students learn and that can happen only when teachers teach. Yet, we consider this milestone non-trivial because reaching here is not easy but more importantly there is hope, that, if teachers do choose to use our techniques, then, we know they are capable of doing so.

If Universal Capability has indeed been established, then what is the next worthy milestone in the pursuit of the end-state?         

We now have to translate this Capability into Competence i.e. ensure teachers know, how to implement our English teaching techniques in their respective classrooms. So, how do we make this happen?

We define Teacher Engagement as a consistent offering of exciting Teaching Learning Material (TLM) in the form of videos, practice sheets, quizzes, books, chart-sets etc. that makes learning joyful and hence spurs teachers to start using our techniques.

While Teacher Support for us means maintaining regular connect with teachers via chats & calls to provide information, give reminders, solve queries & request action. In simple terms, we try very hard to not let the good teachers forget us:)

Our MILESTONE #2 is COMPETENCE: In simple terms means, Trained & certified regional language school teachers in the country now know how to implement our English teaching techniques in their classrooms. At national scale, this milestone too will easily be equivalent to a couple of million teachers and may grant us a mention on the Wall of Scale:).

But then exciting TLM & Regular Communication may induce trial/ limited usage but may not be enough to ensure Adoption (regular use). Yet, we may consider this milestone significant because reaching here is tough but more importantly there is hope, that, from amongst the teachers who have begun teaching, a large percentage may eventually, truly adopt our techniques and continue to do so for a very long time.

Hope is still a 4-letter word, and hence additional continuing efforts are necessary if we want to convert this Competence into guaranteed Adoption.        

How do we make this happen?

At LeapForWord, Rewards imply Teaching (adoption) points which can be redeemed for small gifts for students e.g. workbooks, stationary items etc.

Our MILESTONE #3 is ADOPTION: In simple terms, Trained & certified regional language school teachers in the country who have begun implementing our English teaching techniques in their classrooms continue to do so regularly. At national scale, this milestone may not translate into more than a million teachers, we no longer remain worthy examples of scale:) Yet, this milestone is immensely significant because reaching here is incredibly tough, it takes us close to our mission end-state and more importantly our reliance on hope goes down from here onward.

OUR EXIT CONDITION IS A STATE OF EXCELLENCE, where teachers are intrinsically driven to make their students English proficient, establish English literacy in their classrooms, contribute towards enhancing the reputation of government schools thereby making them a trustworthy alternative for financially stretched parents who desire English schools.         

How do we make this happen?

At LeapForWord, an opportunity to showcase excellence is offered via The Word Power Championship; a competition similar to the American Spelling Bee but designed exclusively for regional language schools. The standard here is so high that emerging as a Winner here is a Badge of Honour.

Scaling Excellence thus means increasing these badges of honour; it took us a decade to convert a simple inter-village event into an 8-state competition; now that it seems The WPC which celebrates student excellence is well established, we have added 2 more badges of honour namely

• Teacher Hero to celebrate teaching Excellence &
• English Literate Schools to celebrate Institutional Excellence.

Each milestone in the pursuit of the end-state is thus an interim exit option just incase we run out of Resources, Commitment or Intent. We are aware that as we progress towards our end-state, our scale of impact will keep dropping; however, we also remind ourselves that despite the drop it will always be a percentage of how many we start out with. The starting pool hence has to keep expanding until it becomes universal so that Excellence can eventually be Maximum.

While I know of very little beyond our work at LeapForWord, I believe our challenges & hence our solutions will be no different from any other organisation that is operating at scale irrespective of the subject (product). The desire to share this note is to offer some thoughts/ ideas from our iterations.

My learnings - Post #3 | Source - LeapForWord | English Learning Made Easy