Projects
Strategic Planning with a Focus on Organizational Culture
with ExpandED Schools and its Board of Directors
From February to December of 2019 I worked on a strategic planning process with ExpandED Schools. ExpandED, founded in 1998, created the first citywide system of K-12 after-school programs in New York City. Today ExpandED works nationally to support after school programs; develop and change public policy; build sustainable public funding models; and conduct external program evaluation. Under new leadership in 2018, ExpandED looked to build a strategic plan for the 2020s. Jane Martinez Dowling, the CEO of ExpandED at the time, hired me to help lead that work.
As a part of the strategic planning process, ExpandED had to make decisions about what program initiatives could and should look like, how to determine whether to continue current initiatives, and what innovation and growth should look like moving forward. The team used the learning surfaced through an extensively researched Landscape Analysis to make strategic decisions about programmatic priorities.
Much of the strategic planning process focused on organizational culture, anchored by a series of foundational questions about the organization through Phases 2 and 3 of our work together:
Why do we choose to exist together as an organization? (Purpose)
What is the difference we hope to make it the world? (Vision)
What is our position in the field? (Mission)
What are the principles and values that will accelerate our progress, both internally and in the field? (Values)
Simultaneous to the process of building clarity about the organization’s broader direction, members of the leadership and executive teams engaged in ideation sessions and conversations to first identify, and then wrestle with, critical questions about organizational design and behavior.
Multi-Day Team Retreat
with Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Civic Sites for Community Change Leadership Team on behalf of UPD Consulting
The goal of the retreat was to begin the process of brainstorming strategy shifts for the unit in concert with the organization’s newly unveiled vision. Participants surfaced themes and guiding values for their work. These themes included the importance of power existing in “people in place,” ensuring that youth voice drives decisions and reigns as the source of expertise, and the importance of collaborating with local community partners across the sector.
The retreat was designed to encourage empathy, build collective definitions of key concepts and, ultimately, create space for strategy ideation. I approached the facilitation design with a goal to encourage both convergent and divergent thinking over the course of the retreat.
Florida Implementation Network
with Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Lake and Volusia County School Districts’ Leadership Teams on behalf of UPD Consulting
In 2015, UPD Consulting was selected to coordinate the Florida Implementation (FLI) Network through a district-led competitive process hosted by the Gates Foundation. Our team conducted deep, root cause analysis of each participating district to understand potential risks and opportunities for improvement. Each district team articulated and designed a set of high leverage strategies aimed at improving standards aligned instruction. District teams then engaged in a continuous improvement process grounded in learning cycles.
My role, in addition to supporting the district work in Miami-Dade, was to build, lead and execute the network strategy over the course of the two year engagement. The goal, from the outset, was to convene leaders from Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Lake and Volusia County School Districts as a network to share struggles and best practices and, ultimately, to break the communication barriers.
Over the course of our six in-person, full team convenings, intermittent cross-district visits and multiple facilitated, expert led topic specific calls, our network participants felt and articulated the benefits to their own work and that of their districts. Participating in the network was powerful because it was a space in which they inspired each other to confront the challenges at the heart of their reform work. They appreciated the opportunity to thought-partner and problem-solve with one another. They shared ideas and models for different approaches and tested those ideas with role-alike colleagues during real-world learning opportunities. At the end of our two years as a network, 100% of survey respondents said that participation in the FLI Network impacted their team’s learning and ability to solve problems.
Team Retreat and Project Closeout
with the internal Florida Implementation Network Project Team at UPD Consulting
UPD Consulting took on its biggest project to date in 2015 when it was selected to serve as the intermediary for the Florida Implementation (FLI) Network, an initiative focused on standards-aligned instruction and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The closeout retreat was custom designed for the internal UPD team, comprised of nine consultants, at the end of the two year project. The goals were to process the emotional responses to the closeout of a the project, to reflect on impact and lessons learned, to identify necessary changes, both individual and organizational, and to acknowledge and appreciate teammates.
The facilitation design for the day created space to voice and manage underlying anxiety, feelings of failure and frustration, to iterate and ideate on possibilities and to build strength as a team.
Diversity, Inclusion & Representation
with Hyperakt
Hyperakt, a social impact design and strategy studio based in Brooklyn, wanted to create dedicated time and space to talk about race and representation. What started as a yearlong series of conversations intended to explore and share about individual identity evolved into a space where the team was able to more explicitly engage in courageous conversations about race and interrogate how white conditioning impacts their studio’s culture and the work they do on behalf of clients.
Exploring Goal Setting and Feedback at the NYCDOE
with the NYCDOE’s Organizational Development Unit on behalf of UPD Consulting
I facilitated a yearlong Community of Practice (CoP) investigating the state of feedback within the New York City Department of Education’s central office. Our CoP included members from across the central office, including managers and directors from the legal, finance, human capital, technology and communications teams. Convened on behalf of the Organizational Development Unit, I brought this diverse group of leaders together five times over the course of a year to explore the importance and challenges of engaging in feedback and goal setting and, ultimately, to develop a series of recommendations for the Chancellor and her Cabinet.
