Going to Scale or Going to Fail:

We Tell the Tale with Every Detail

I. Why this work?

It is not a lack of good ideas that challenges us; it is getting those ideas and resources to the right people at the right time that is the problem.

Everywhere you look today there is a plethora of new ideas and innovation. From Instagram commercials to customized clothing boxes; we are inundated with the latest and greatest innovation that will make us appear younger, look cooler, and behave efficiently. There is no shortage of ideas.

Education is no different. There are Twitter chats, online resources, Insta-stories, webinars, and customizable lesson plans that are being shared daily. It begs the question: in a world where ideas are flourishing and are more accessible, why is it that education leaders fail to spread their most promising ideas — ideas that have the potential to end policies that reinforce white supremacy, and enable practices that engage young people and elicit creativity within educators.

Education does not have an idea problem; it has a scaling problem. This is the design challenge we embarked on in Spring 2020 when we asked ourselves: how might we spread and achieve scaled impact of promising practices in K12 education?

To begin to understand this question; we conducted desk research, engaged in literature reviews, and partnered with Stanford colleagues to learn about the best practices for scale. This led us to the creation of the first-ever d.school pop-out class called: Going to Scale-Going to Fail. This day-and-a-half-long virtual course aimed to examine how ideas and practices move from one to many; how bringing an equity lens to scaling initiatives is and should be at heart of scaling work; and how to design for the ethical and equitable dilemmas that all innovators will eventually encounter when trying to get their ideas into the world.

II. What did we create?

As designers we believe that learning is done through doing, so we based the pop-out on the creation and use of a toolkit for spread and scaled impact. We imagined these to be like a Swiss Army Knife — a set of simple tools with multiple functions that one could carry around in a metaphorical pocket. Because this pop-out was virtual, we knew we had to create digital tools.

We created six tools:

1. “What got you here won’t get you there” — a table to help capture what has helped you get to this point, and a place to brainstorm what you need to do next
2. “Find and learn from bright spots” — a note-catcher to identify where there are already success stories to learn from
3. “Scale is about adaptation” — a storyboard template to keep removing features of your innovation until you are left with just the non-negotiable, core
4. “Storytelling matters” — a “Mad Lib” to present what happened with regard to successes and challenges you faced
5. “Focus on specific goals with specific deadlines” — prompts to help name when interim targets will be met, and what success looks like
6. “Consider the system” — using the “iceberg” model to explore how to change ways that mental models and systems levers can advance or inhibit spread

III. What we tried

We considered different formats for this class, especially when we had to shift to it being entirely online. Our kick-off event was planned as a community forum in the Atrium at the d.school, which would’ve allowed for an energizing exchange of ideas. Instead, we live streamed to YouTube, which enabled greater potential for viewership, but at the cost of the personal interaction that would’ve happened in person.

We had planned for the students to meet all day and interact in person as they focused on two deep dives and used their “Swiss Army knife” to solve their own spread and scaled impact challenges. Again, with the remote format, we knew students would not want to stare at a screen for 10 hours, so we instead abbreviated the workshop to five hours, which by necessity shortened the experience.

IV. What we learned

1. As a rule, educators love a tool: We learned that these tools were most helpful to users who were at early stages of scale — those within the first couple years of implementation, and those who have captured less than 10% of the addressable market (many of the students in the class had captured far less than 1%). Similar to good practice in prototyping and testing, this makes sense because designers are more likely to experiment when they haven’t yet landed on a set of specific features, and therefore have more degrees of freedom and fewer sunk costs that are harder to change.
2. Designers create, scalers cultivate: One of the biggest takeaways from this course and the preparation before was dissecting the difference between those who are successful at designing new ideas and those who have been successful at scaling them. In most organizations, there is an assumption that the person who designs it should be the person who tries to scale it. On the surface it seems like the right approach because the designer has a deep understanding of the idea. However, scaling is less about holding on to the full version of the initial idea and instead it is about cultivating communities of practices who can take, adapt and share those ideas within their unique contexts. Scalers are community organizers who know that building trust and creating adaptability is crucial for innovation to take hold and sustain itself. Understandably, innovators may love their idea so much that they are reluctant to let it be changed. Yes, the scalers should have a deep understanding of the innovation; but they are more attuned to where the innovation can be adapted and what aspects are non-negotiable.
3. When we keep our eyes peeled, we can learn from another field: Educators love to talk education. We talk about the issues in education at school, at home, and in our afternoon meet-ups. It permeates our lives and the work we do in the world. And while this passion is admirable, it often leads us to siloed thinking. Scaling new ideas and innovations requires divergent thinking. To propel divergent thinking in this pop-out we partnered with experts from health care, gaming, and technology to learn how they have scaled new ideas and innovations. Each partner brought a different lens to the work. Enrico DeAngelo reminded us that in the videogame industry, companies like Roblox have achieved enormous success not by creating content to be consumed, but by transforming players into a community of creators. Stephanie Hannon showed us the importance of ritual in rapidly building a culture at US Digital Response, an all-remote, all-volunteer response to COVID-19. And Othman Laraki of Color encouraged innovators to stay grounded in their mission but be open to pivoting the means of accomplishing that mission (in Color’s case, switching rapidly from genetic testing to COVID-19 testing).
4. Scaling as a bet, needs a marathon mindset. One continuous take away from our preparation and the course itself is that scaling is a mindset. Ineffective scalers develop a scaling strategy and execute on it irrespective of the impact size and region. Ethical- and equity-centered scalers know that a scaling strategy is a series of sprints, adaptations, and reframing aimed at addressing the current size and impact of the work. There is not a one-size-fits-all scaling strategy. To scale, we must take on the mindset of a marathon runner knowing that what got you to the start; will not get you to finish.
5. Scale isn’t just going for all, but also thinking small. How can we reframe scale, so we’re not asking about how big we can imagine in terms of impact, but what’s the tiniest behavioral change we might ask folks to make? Scaling initiatives often take on big numbers: how can we impact as many as possible by bringing the innovation to communities? But to scale with an equity mindset requires you to create incremental structures and activities to scale ideas with communities. This requires innovators to hold their aspirations for their impact; while creating adaptable and accessible ways to be involved.

V. What are the next steps in this work?

Based on this pop-out, we learned that the Scale Swiss Army Knife was a useful way to help shift mindsets and jump-start thinking. We can imagine taking another pass through the tool design. We also imagine that there might be more useful tools in analog form — for example, we had previously prototyped a deck of cards to help folks consider what underlying metal models or metaphors were driving their work — so next steps would also include further developing those tools.

We also plan to continue to explore work at the intersection of scale and social justice (or more explicitly, ways to dismantle structures that preserve racial injustice). In many ways, our tools were somewhat agnostic about equity (although we did have prompts to encourage users, for example, to consider how adaptation might enable the innovation to serve communities furthest from opportunity). We can ask, how might we embed these elements into the core of this work?