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- [00:01]
A
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hello everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Operational excellence isn't just a buzzword. It's a strategic approach that has transformed industries like manufacturing, healthcare and technology. But what about education? Can schools adopt the same principles to streamline operations, maximize resources, and ultimately enhance student outcomes? Last year I sat down with Stephen Morales, chief executive of the Institute of School Business Leadership in the uk, to introduce the concept of operational excellence, or opex, in schools. In this follow up conversation, we'll discuss how the movement has evolved, the challenges and successes in bringing these ideas into education, and the next steps in this growing initiative. So today we'll explore what progress has been made since the last discussion on opex. How are schools responding to the idea of operational excellence? What are the biggest challenges in implementing these strategies in education? And what's next for the OPEX initiative? And how can school business leaders get involved? Steven, welcome back to the podcast. I'm happy to have you, my friend.
- [01:35]
B
Welcome, John. Thank you.
- [01:36]
A
Yeah, so we're at the tail end of the leadership in Tampa. How'd it go for you this time around?
- [01:43]
B
Great. Really good as ever. I think it's a moment of self reflection. It also asked us some important questions about the way that we, that we behave and the way that we interact.
- [01:57]
A
Sure.
- [01:58]
B
And as ever, I'm, you know, I find my brain filled with lots of things to cogitate and in many respects the, the real power of these events comes afterwards. So while you're in the moment, it's great, stimulating, having great conversations with colleagues, but actually when you step away and you start to apply all of that theory to real world examples is when you get the real value out of it. It's so great as ever.
- [02:28]
A
Good, good. Well, I'm always happy when our paths cross, so I'm glad to bring you back on. So, like I said in the introduction, we spoke about OPEX last year, what's been going on since April of 24 until now?
- [02:41]
B
A lot is what I'd say. So I think let's go back to first principles and I think you gave us a definition at the start of the podcast and it's been really interesting how people have responded to operational excellence. And I'm going to start with this. What it is and what it isn't.
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A
Sure.
- [03:02]
B
So operation being operationally excellent, small O, small E. Right. Is a thing. And you could say operation, I think I'm operationally excellent, or I think I'm getting close to operationally excellent, or I'm not operationally excellent at all. That is not opex. Opex, Capital O, capital E is a. Is a methodology. It's a defined approach. It has specific domains. So when we move around the system and actually when we surveyed districts in the US and schools and trust in the uk, that was important to get across, and we absolutely saw green shoots of operationally excellent behavior. But what we can say universally is that there was no codified approach.
- [03:55]
A
So there was evidence of opex, but it just wasn't kind of packaged in a streamlined form. You were seeing bits and pieces of what was contained in opex.
- [04:03]
B
Yeah. And it wasn't really intentional.
- [04:06]
A
Yeah.
- [04:06]
B
So it was, it was there by happen, chance. So, you know, and again, depending on the reference points of individuals in these organizations, so they may have stumbled across it in industry or they may have read a book, or they may have done a course on Lean or Six Sigma. And so there were bits of it, but a defined, codified, intentional approach to being operationally excellent using the methodology, using the techniques was absent. Now, you could look at that and go, well, that's depressing or glimmers of hope.
- [04:41]
A
Right.
- [04:42]
B
And that's the way to look at it. So schools and trusts and districts are doing great work. And that's the first thing to say. So we don't need to be depressed at all. But the fact that there's a huge opportunity to be better is the thing that we should embrace right now. We had industry experts leading this research with no axe to grind, no real skin in the game other than they believe in education. So it was, I think, a very balanced, very neutral set of observations. And what they said was universally taking both systems on aggregate and saying, where are they in terms of opex out of 10, they were saying about a three. Now, again, you could be very depressed about that number or you could say that means there's seven out of 10. There's a seven out of 10 space to be better.
- [05:39]
A
And two, just these institutions not even maybe realizing what OPEX is demonstrating. Some of those characteristics, I would say is a positive. Right. So lean into that. Even though it may be a three out of ten, it's better than zero.
- [05:52]
B
Correct? Correct. So. So that's that, that, that's the, that's the, the size of the prize. The size of the Prize is the 7 out of, out of 10 if, if you like, and this is going to sound bold and people are going to push back as they have done and as we've spoken to, to those that were part of the sample. But I think it's a reasonable, a reasonable assertion. Moving from a 3 out of 10 to a 5 out of 10 could represent 20 to 30% capacity gains in operations. Now, we're not making any claims that we're going to see improvements in the classroom that are going to move from a 3 to a 5 or whatever. In fact, we're not making a judgment on the classroom interventions. But what we're saying is that get the ingredients right and the approach to creating optimal conditions for teaching and learning to take place, move from a 3 to a 5 and beyond if you really, you know, if you really, really push on. So at a time where, you know, there's. The fiscal backdrop is horrendous. You know, every, every school and trust that I speak to and I, you know, talking to colleagues here at the conference are saying, you know, we're being asked to do more with less all of the time.
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A
Yeah.
- [07:11]
B
Those capacity gains have to be. Have to be looked at. And we can continue to argue, and we should, that there needs to be a better level of investment in public education. Absolutely. So I'm not in any way diminishing that agenda, but I think in the meantime, given we are where we are, I think chasing that 20%, 30% is really important.
- [07:37]
A
Sure. So does operational excellence maybe allow means to do more with less? I mean, if you, are you. Is it giving you an opportunity to streamline and become more efficient in what you're doing? Because, I mean, I think there's only so much that schools can do without more resources. But is OPEX that. Is that an opportunity?
- [07:57]
B
So what OPEX does, really, it's a relentless pursuit. Well, it's a relentless pursuit of a number of things, but it's a relentless pursuit of waste and waste. And we're not talking about deliberate waste. We're talking about invisible waste. Waste that unless we pay proper attention, we won't see. It's about eliminating duplication. There is a concept of right first time every time.
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A
Right.
- [08:25]
B
So if you imagine workflow, what you don't want is to move three steps forwards and five steps back, or that you having to redo work because the quality of the information you've got is suboptimal.
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A
Right.
- [08:38]
B
You don't want to, you don't want to have to introduce or you shouldn't introduce layers of control and authorization that aren't adding value.
- [08:50]
A
Right.
- [08:50]
B
So we've got to be a bit braver in that space. So schemes of delegation need to be set at an appropriate level. We need to know exactly what we're getting out of our investment in tech. So tech's great and it's an enabler, right. But it can also muddy the water. So we can end up with like too much information, too much data.
- [09:12]
A
I've seen a lot of tech for tech's sake, right? Just adding more and more and more. But what is the return on investment?
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B
And how many times have colleagues been in rooms where dashboards have been presented and you can't see the wood for the trees? You just got a load of stuff overloaded with data. Oh my goodness, it's just red, amber, green everywhere. And what on earth does that even pretty mean?
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A
Start.
- [09:33]
B
Yeah, and, and, and then, and then how much time do we spend producing enormous reports for our stakeholders to read, for our internal colleagues to read? And then we go into the meeting and read the report that we sent a week before and it's all of that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So, so, and you might argue that, you might argue that these are, these are small, marginal things, they're not going to make a difference. But they do. You add them together and they make sure it's, it's what elite sport has done incredibly well. It is gone for the tiny incremental gains and you add them all together and you optimize performance. You look at any kind of high performing team, Olympic team and race driving team, they do that relentlessly. Actually, most of the gains are the small ones added together rather than going.
- [10:26]
A
For this kind of big in isolation, those small gains may not mean much of anything. But to your point, combined with everything else that you're doing incrementally, that end result is going to be way more effective than. Yeah, than not.
- [10:40]
B
And just just one other thing on that is so when you, when you then create headroom in your organization, it's really interesting. So it is, it is the catalyst for, for improvement. It gives you the space to think about innovation. So you can't, you can't meaningfully, for example, integrate AI into your organization if you've got no space at all to go on that change journey. So you get stuck. But if you find the space, you can then look at innovation, look at new technology, look at digital capability and integrate it in a way that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
- [11:16]
A
Right. So last year we talked about this very much in its theoretical state. I imagine you've been working with trusts and schools and school business officials. What's been the reception? I mean, I think what I'm hearing you say is that with operational excellence, that really is taking a different approach to your work and maybe letting some things go and identifying some deficiencies that can lead to some vulnerabilities I think that people could be sensitive to. So how's the perception been?
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. This is a well trodden path for the guys who are leading the charge in terms of the training and the facilitation. So they've done this in, in defense, in fintech, in big commercial organizations. So it's proven to work. But when they start, there's a foundation, this foundation course that leads to associate and then accredited practitioner qualifications. But the foundation course, it's very abstract, deliberately abstract in terms of the power of opex. So for example, they will give, they will invite CEOs, CFOs to work together on a task. And the first task they introduce is using Lego. The team of colleagues have to build a dinosaur. Okay, right now you think, well, building a dinosaur with LEGO and opex, how does that even work? What it asks, what it invites everybody to do, is to allocate tasks. It has to identify a leader. Because if you, if you have six voices crowding each other out, it's not going to work.
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A
Right.
- [12:56]
B
It invites you to think about process, it invites you to think about waste, invites you to think about, you know, when are people too busy and when are people there with their arms crossed. And that task takes you from. So on average this is a group of very senior individuals working together four minutes to build the dinosaur. And then the facilitators offer techniques. So they do it four other times. And every time they give them one tip, how they can improve. And it goes from four to three to two. In the end, the task is done in 27 seconds.
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A
Wow.
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B
So, and this is, this is very senior people who over the course of 10, 15 minutes learn about their own vulnerabilities. When they should step up, when they should step back, when they should accelerate, when they should take their foot off the gas and you end up with this optimal outcome. And then what the facilitators do is say, so now think about that in the context of a process within your organization.
- [14:01]
A
Right. Do you find that getting so many leaders together in one space does everyone seemed to naturally fall into what they're most comfortable doing. Does somebody kind of rise to the top? Is that sole leader or is there a competition? Because when you have a lot of people who are used to kind of calling the shots all the time, I'd imagine that there's some competition, intentional or unintentional, just trying to figure out whose role is whose.
- [14:23]
B
Well, it's really interesting. So what you see is. So you do see some people being very assertive to begin with and almost cocky. And they take their kind of bold, very confident style, they bring that into the, into the room, but if it doesn't work, they very quickly understand that actually there are others that have different styles.
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A
Right.
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B
That may be more optimal. Now you need a bit of it, a bit of both. Sure, but it's a leveler, is what I'm saying. And yeah, you definitely see, you know, people walk in with a level of confidence and aura or whatever. They present themselves in a certain way and very quickly things level out, which is really important. And I think that's in its own way, it's a lesson in leadership. This idea of followship and more consensual leadership, which is becoming far more proven to be far more effective, is another reason why we're not as optimal as we might be. Because personalities, culture, all these things matter.
- [15:30]
A
You mentioned the industries and where OPEX is really shining and thriving. In my experience, public education is a behemoth and slow to adopt. Are you finding that in your initial implementation of this?
- [15:44]
B
Yeah, I think that's fair. I think education, public sector generally, we've had a look at, as part of the research, we looked at the National Health Service in the uk who have tried to adopt some of these techniques. And it is slow and it is a bit, you know, it's like plucking teeth in some, in some instances, but I think. So where the imperative is, is profit. It's a huge carrot. So industry, you know, will, will pursue.
- [16:18]
A
They'Ll adapt a little quicker. But there's money on the list.
- [16:20]
B
Yeah, exactly that. So, so, so they, they will adapt, they will find a way. Because, because the incentive, the, the, the prize is massive and there's something tangible.
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A
Right. I mean, you can see on a balance sheet that, yeah, maybe what we have done is yielded more revenue or more profit, where education is a little bit more intangible.
- [16:38]
B
Yeah. And I think that, again, I mean, I talk about capability in the context of our education system and I start my, my presentation, my narrative, if you like, with. There are key stakeholders, so if we're talking about optimal, you know, the optimal capability of our workforce, then that has to come from, in the first instance, society, government, regulators, and then internal stakeholders. But if, if, if society are kind of a bit apathetic and they're not that bothered about what education system we have, if government then develop policies in line with that apathy, if the regulators are, if you like, what's the word I'm looking for, not clear about the accountability framework which they've designed, you know, the desired outcomes, and then there's a kind of internal confusion about what it is we're trying to do, then we shouldn't be surprised that we're not optimal. If we set a high bar, if we invest properly in education, if we think carefully about the way that we work, and actually never mind dollars on the balance sheet, but outcomes for children becomes the most important thing. And we can do amazing things because collectively there's consensus around how much this matters. So the prize here is not. The prize here is not the bottom line, dollars in the bank. The prize here is the future of our economies. And I think refocusing people's minds in that way is important. What we're doing is we're saying we can learn from industry in terms of this, in terms of these techniques, because it works. And the size of the prize is massive because ultimately we'll create better conditions for children to learn, better outcomes for kids, better future for our respective societies.
- [18:48]
A
So what you just defined, and I think a lot of my counterparts will agree with me, is just really the potential and existing systemic issues in public education, whether it's apathy towards policy, just procedures. Does operational excellence allow school districts to kind of break the mold of just kind of going through the motions? Because what we were talking about prior was that there is a lot of opportunity to just kind of keep doing what we've always been doing. Yeah, but is this an opportunity elsewhere? Does this kind of break away from just the norm?
- [19:20]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the things that it asks is why are we doing stuff? So, so, and we get into. There's an inertia, isn't there?
- [19:29]
A
Right.
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B
You know, that, oh, we have to do this. We have to report in this way. We have to have these, these controls in place. You know, almost compliance trumps effectiveness. So we, so we, we define ourselves almost by being compliant.
- [19:44]
A
Sure.
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B
And a lot less about how effective we are. And I do, I do think it asks us to be braver and bolder in terms of what, what are we doing so why are we doing it? Keep asking the question, is this absolutely necessary and is it adding value? And we've got to get out of that. We've got to break that mold of.
- [20:07]
A
Is operational excellence kind of, I'm thinking almost. OPEX is like a grassroots movement in terms of the just overall system of public education. I mean, as small school districts start to implement opex, do you see that maybe affecting change systemically in public education and policy and government?
- [20:28]
B
Yeah. I mean, if you go back to those first principles of why do we have an education system, what are we trying to achieve? Then I think there is a potential for, I think there was a potential for a revolution almost, you know, but revolution with a, with a small arm. But I think, you know, if we, so if we take the domains, I'm not going to go through every one of them.
- [21:03]
A
Sure.
- [21:04]
B
But culture matters. And what I mean by that is the culture that exists within the organization, top to bottom. And does everybody really understand what we're trying to achieve? So why are they there? Does the CFO and the entire team, are they aligned to a goal and a purpose that is, that is, that is absolutely consistent with the principal and the teachers in school? Ultimately, is there alignment? And our experience is there isn't. So people are operating their own little silos. We talk about three pillars of leadership, governance, pedagogy, so teaching, learning and business operations. And quite often those things operate in three different compartmentalized territories and we encourage more joined up behavior. But yeah, so culture really matters. People matter.
- [22:03]
A
I mean, in the end it's what we work with, right?
- [22:06]
B
Yeah. Good people, motivated people, people who feel valued and we should pay attention to all of our people, top to bottom systems and data, fantastic. But if they're used in the wrong way, they can actually get in the way. Used in the right way, they can be enormously beneficial. That commitment to continuous improvement. So never being satisfied with where you are today, always looking at ways to be better and reflecting on what you've done historically. And I think this last couple of days has been partly about that.
- [22:40]
A
Absolutely.
- [22:41]
B
And then quality, a relentless pursuit of quality. So whether it's a district providing a service to its schools, whether it's a colleague within a finance team providing information to another colleague, we should be absolutely committed, doing the best job we can for each other. And I think if you get those ingredients right, and I know it sounds quite theoretical and in its own way abstract, but if you drill down into those bits and you're relentless about it, then the outcomes and the possibilities are endless. They really are.
- [23:23]
A
Right. So how do you keep that inertia, though? I mean, this seems like it could be a potentially heavy lift for an organization. And you know, there's so many things that school business officials and schools in general have to deal with, whether it be regulation, policy, mandates. How is this something that rises to the top and that you keep that momentum going and you don't lose that inertia.
- [23:42]
B
So there is definitely, there is definitely a task for us in proof of concept.
- [23:48]
A
Sure.
- [23:49]
B
So we can talk about this to a blue in the face. My industry colleagues reassure me that there is enough evidence out there of improvement, very significant improvement that they can point to outside of education that, that they would say, well, the proof of concept is already there.
- [24:06]
A
Right.
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B
And I always go back to them and say, yeah, but education is different because, because it's what education people say. Yeah, yeah. So, so we, we, we need to take people on a journey and we need to come back to it in a year's time and say, right, we started this, we've implemented these techniques and these are the, these are the tangible outputs. This is the impact that it's had. And until we do that, it's going to be really difficult to make everybody a believer. But I think what we can do very early in the process is encourage that. I mean, you talked about all of the things that are in the way, regulatory environment, bureaucracy, that just, just the ton of stuff that comes in the direction of school officials. That's exactly what the stuff we need to get out of the way. That is the problem. And we're so bogged down really in stuff that we can't see the wood for the trees. I'll come back to just a very quickly to an anecdote. And my wife's a teacher, so she was a primary school teacher and now she's a special educational needs coordinator. But I've had conversations with effort for 20 years about the job. She loves the job. She loves being in front of children. She loves making a difference. She hates bureaucracy.
- [25:25]
A
Yeah, she can relate.
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B
She hates the compliance environment. So she says two things. She said, if you can take away the bureaucracy in my career, if you could take away the bureaucracy that I've had to deal with, which in her opinion has often been had limited value, and if you can give me the resources I need to do a great job in front of children, so a nice classroom with all of the materials that I need to deliver, you know that I can be optimal.
- [25:53]
A
Right.
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B
And my job would be a Pleasure. But because these other things get in the way, it becomes burdensome.
- [26:04]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. So since we spoke last year, do you have any examples of maybe some early adopters and successes with implementing OPEX? Even if it's just going from a 3 to a 4 or 3 to a 5 or what have you seen since really kind of taking charge on this?
- [26:21]
B
So there's a couple of multi academy trusts. I'm just going to give colleagues on this podcast a sense of scale. So we're talking about 50, 70 million pound operations with maybe 20, 25 schools, 2,000 staff, central teams, 100 plus. So sizable. Yeah, organizations. And they have, both of these organizations have, have taken OPEX and baked it into their school improvement plan, into their, into their five year strategy. So it is that important to them.
- [27:03]
A
So it's really a fiber of who they are now.
- [27:05]
B
It's a fiber of who they are. And so the domains are baked into their strategy. They look at everything through the lens of each of the domains and they ask the question. And if you look at the framework, you'll see that there's a descriptor and then there is how you need to be intentional in that descriptor. And so they've taken that and they've said, so let's measure ourselves internally against that descriptor. And so how well are we doing in the people space? Do we have a people strategy? Do we pay attention to the needs of our people? Do we make this the best place to work? Are we flexible with our approach to working arrangements? Do we have a PD strand that's meaningful? Do we have performance management conversations that are valuable for both the employer and the employee and so on and so forth. So I'm very encouraged by that. Now it's too early for me to say that has led to better outcomes for children, better headroom in the organisation in terms of the fiscal challenges that they might face? But it feels like a very grown up approach to running a complex business. And when you look at their strategic plans, it's very coherent and way more coherent than it was maybe six months ago. So those are the things that I think give us optimism.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah. And when we spoke last, you said that OPEX is something that transcends throughout an organization. I'm paraphrasing, but it's not just kind of a top down initiative, but you see real value in each department or employee kind of buying into this and really kind of changing their mindset. So maybe it does start with administration and it trickles down to the classroom, but you Were speaking too about facilities and food and service and all of that. I mean, are you seeing any evidence of that kind of. In these early adopters? Are you seeing that the operational departments are kind of streamlining and adopting OPEX properties?
- [29:21]
B
So again, this will only work. So if you create. So the two organizations I'm talking about that have now recalibrated their strategies to include those operational excellence domains, you can't do that top down. You can't just write a strategy, put it in front of your executive leaders and say, this is us now.
- [29:43]
A
Right?
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B
That. That has to be lived and breathed all the way through the organization. So every part of the organization, whether it's cating, catering, transportation, finance, administration, grounds maintenance, that is the lens through which they all have to look at their activities. That is the thing that the leadership of these organizations are encouraging each of their departments to. To adopt because they're saying, reflect on each of these things right within your task.
- [30:11]
A
So that lens is shared throughout all departments.
- [30:13]
B
100. Yeah, yeah. So. So you could take even something as straightforward as requisitioning. So how do you overlay requisitioning to operational excellence? Or, sorry, how do you overlay operational excellence to this task?
- [30:27]
A
Right.
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B
So what's the culture within the requisitioning team? What are the processes? Is there duplication? Is there quality? Are we having to repeat stuff time and time and so on and so forth? So it becomes just the thing that we all do.
- [30:42]
A
Right. Have you witnessed maybe in these two organizations, specifically, an improvement in culture? It can be challenging to measure, I think, culture. I mean, you can survey people, but it's oftentimes anecdotal and can be challenging to really put some data to it. But are you hearing any positive feedback in terms of OPEX potentially improving culture?
- [31:07]
B
So I think both of these organizations talk a good game. So we haven't gone back and tested this. So what we did during the OPEX research was we made sure that we had conversations with everybody, sorry, people at all levels throughout the organization. So we talked to the. To the janitor, to the. We talked to the.
- [31:30]
A
Oh, so you're not just working with an administrative team, You're.
- [31:33]
B
No, no.
- [31:34]
A
Going into the trenches and talking to everybody.
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B
We talked to everybody. We talked to everybody and we. And we said, your CEO has said that the culture of this organization, the values of this organization are xyz. What does it feel like to you? In fact, we didn't say that. What we said was, talk to me about the values of this organization.
- [31:49]
A
So you didn't even kind of feed what the answer should be.
- [31:51]
B
No, no. What are the values of this organization? And then we said, oh, well actually we've heard this, this thing about the organization which doesn't sound exactly the same as what you're saying. And then we tried to find.
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A
And so that's probably a good starting point to kind of then bridge the gap. Why are you feeling this way when we're being told that the culture of the organization supposedly is a different way?
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, yeah. Now in some cases, and in fact in many cases the interpretation of the culture and the values of the organization was maybe slightly off, but there wasn't anything particularly toxic. It's just that the interpretation was slightly off. So that was a comms problem, if you like. What we've encouraged these leaders to do is to make sure that that doesn't get lost in translation. So you don't, you don't, you don't set something up at an executive level and then that moves to middle management and middle management then pass that message on in a way that they think is appropriate. And then you end up with this Chinese whispers thing. So it starts with, you know, we're for a particular thing and it becomes very diluted on the ground. So that's an opportunity maybe to, this provides an opportunity to kind of clarify what that actually means and to spend a bit more time making sure that everybody understands what the organization's about and then to say, and part of this is that we're going to have this relentless focus on how well we're doing against these domains because it asks us to. So as a, you know, going back to what operational excellence is and isn't, we're not telling it, we're not telling anybody how to do anything. We're just saying that everything you do should, you should reflect on it through these lens.
- [33:33]
A
Right, right. So, so what operational departments do you feel are maybe best suited to kind of be jump started by OPEX implementation, like maybe finance human resources facilities? What do you see is really that.
- [33:46]
B
So there, there are parts of any organization where there are very defined processes and it's a bit easier to look at those processing processes and say how do we overlay operational excellence? So, you know, where there's a very clearly defined start, middle and end to a process, then you can, yeah, you can.
- [34:15]
A
A little bit easier to measure that.
- [34:16]
B
Yeah, it's maybe harder to, maybe harder to do that with culture, which is one of the most important things. Sure, but you can, but you, you know, you can, you can think about the way that information flows within the organization. I mean that's a big part of culture. The comm strategy, the internal and external comm strategy would be another thing that you could pay close attention to. But yeah, I think you're right. There are definitely, there's some low hanging fruit in terms of very defined processes and the people that are involved and the controls and the, and the authorizations and so forth, which you can probably, you know, you can probably fix those fairly quickly.
- [34:59]
A
Sure, sure. So what's Next for the AppX initiative with you? I mean you've been really kind of leading this charge in the uk you've mentioned maybe, I think we were talking offline yesterday or the day before about really looping in some state affiliates in the United States. What's next on the horizon?
- [35:19]
B
So we would love, we would absolutely love to collaborate with ASBO International on the mobilization, if you like, of a training program. Because what and the facilitators, the research leads cautioned us of very early was OPEX is not a manual. You can't just give someone a framework and say off you go, you know, just do it yourself. To be operationally excellent, capital O, capital E, you need to be trained in the techniques.
- [35:57]
A
It's more of a mindset. It sounds like.
- [35:58]
B
Yeah, it's a mindset, it's a culture, but it, but it is a toolkit as well that you need to be guided through. Right, so, so going back to your question, what next? We would love to mobilize training in the us. We don't know exactly what that looks like. We'd have to think about partners, we'd have to think about how we train trainers if you like. So we may need to upskill a cadre of individuals and then they become trainers of the future. So that's a conversation that we're going to have with the hierarchy at ASBO International. And back in the UK we've run two pilots now with 32 trusts that have gone really well and now we're into open cohorts. So from, from, from the spring there'll be opportunities for schools and trusts up and down the UK to participate in these, in these cohorts and we'll take people from foundation through to associate, associate and accredited practitioner. Ultimately, where we'd like to get to is that we've got enough people in the system trained at accredited practitioner level that they can become the assessors, the facilitators of the future. And it takes on a world of its own.
- [37:18]
A
So you may have just outlined a little bit of my next question, but wrapping up here, if we sit down a year from now and have this conversation again, what do you hope to see? What progress do you hope to have lived a year from now?
- [37:32]
B
So I hope to come back talking less in the abstract and more in the absolute, so that the multiple organizations like the two that I described can give us evidence that it's had the impact that we thought it would, and that we can say, we started here, this has given us this capacity back, and we are, as an organization, much clearer about how we improve in every aspect of our operation through the domains that are set out in the Operational Excellence Framework. And that would be a great story to tell. It would also be wonderful if we could start to see cohorts in the US on a similar journey and albeit that there's potentially a bit of a lag because we're, we're starting a little bit later, but a year from now, it'd be great if we had six months worth of stories to tell.
- [38:34]
A
Yeah, great. So if a school business official or educator wants to learn more beyond the conversation we've had today, what are some resources, what are some sites that people can kind of check out to just maybe do a little bit deeper of a dive on opex?
- [38:49]
B
Sure. So it's very straightforward. Just go to isbl.org uk, go to the Operational Excellence page, and you're invited to register for copies of the research, the full research, the Executive Abstract, which is an easier read, and the framework itself is set out there, and just our infomail. Anybody's got any questions, please drop them in there and we'll do our very best to respond. But I hope beyond that there'll be a more meaningful dialogue between ASBO International, ISBL and our work on Operational Excellence. And of course, we've got those districts that collaborated throughout the research that I've had a couple of conversations during the last couple of days and they're interested in what next. So, yeah, there's energy and it will be exciting to come back in a year and, and talk about, you know, where we've got to.
- [39:52]
A
Great. Well, I'm excited to see how this momentum carries forward and, you know, in a year when we sit down, hopefully, and talk again, I'm excited to explore what, what you've been able to accomplish, what school districts have been able to accomplish, and ultimately, just hopefully, better outcomes for kids. Right.
- [40:05]
B
That's what it's about.
- [40:06]
A
All right, well, safe travels home, my friend. I appreciate it.
- [40:08]
B
Thank you so much.
- [40:10]
A
Thank you. For tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.