Welcome to the Deep Dive. If you've ever sort
of scratched your head wondering why getting
new technology into schools feels, well, almost
like a political campaign, today we're really
diving into a big part of the answer, the Technology
Steering Committee. Our mission here is to unpack
what this group actually does, yes, but maybe
more importantly, why it even exists and how
it acts as this crucial operational firewall
for school leaders. We're getting into the weeds
of some pretty high stakes ed tech decision making.
Yeah. And I think it's really necessary context
to start with the administrator's perspective,
the burden they carry. You know, these are licensed
professionals hired by the school board. They
have the ultimate responsibility for making policies
and decisions happen across the district. But
the sources we looked at make this really critical
point. The effective administrators, they know
they can't possibly have all the expertise needed
to make every single tech decision wisely on
their own. OK, so the person with the actual
power, the one signing the check, knows they
shouldn't be the only one deciding. But if that's
true, why not just, you know, hand it off to
the IT department, let them buy the stuff? Doesn't
that just kick the political can down the road?
Ah, but that's exactly where this steering committee
really proves its worth. See, the administrator's
job means constantly setting limits. Limits on
what tech gets bought, limits on hiring more
staff to support it and crucially resolving these
disagreements when different groups want different
things prioritized. If you've got teachers saying,
we need X, IT saying, we need Y to support X,
and the budget office saying, there's no money
for either. Well, all those conflicts land right
at the administrator's feet. Yeah, that sounds
like a recipe for constant gridlock, a guaranteed
conflict loop, like you said. So how do leaders
actually navigate that? These really intense,
often opposing demands without everything just
grinding to a halt. Well, the main reason, the
primary driver for even having this committee.
is conflict reduction, or maybe conflict synthesis
is a better term. You absolutely need a dedicated
kind of safe space to hammer out the differences
between what teachers are asking for, what the
tech folks know is necessary for stability, and
what the budget and existing policies actually
allow, that structure, that process. That's really
what we mean when we talk about the operational
firewall. an operational firewall. I like that
framing. So the committee sort of absorbs the
political friction. It filters all those competing
demands before they hit the administrator's desk,
making sure whatever gets recommended is actually
well. doable. Exactly. It forces these different,
often conflicting viewpoints to wrestle with
each other and find some common ground, some
kind of implementable solution. OK, so let's
talk about who's actually on this committee,
who gets a seat at that table. Our sources really
emphasize it needs to be a diverse group, you
know, representing different parts of the school
community. But what specific qualities are they
looking for in a member beyond just being, say,
a teacher or an IT person? Yeah, good question.
It's really about vision and operational intelligence.
Committee members ideally are picked because
they hold a strong kind of overarching vision
for the whole organization, not just their own
little corner of it. They're expected to have
a pretty broad understanding of how the entire
school or district operates. Because if you only
see your piece of the puzzle, you can't really
negotiate effectively for the whole system. Right.
So they're not just showing up with their department's
wish list. They need to be genuinely interested
in finding technologies that plug real gaps,
whether those are gaps in teaching or gaps in
how the whole place runs. They're basically solution
finders. And that shared vision. or at least
the process of building it is what makes the
committee potentially work. It's that shared
space where teachers, technicians, administrators,
maybe even parents or students sometimes actually
sit down together. They hash out solutions that
hopefully support everyone or at least balance
the needs. That's where the alignment has a chance
to start. That alignment piece leads us right
into the core tension, doesn't it? Because the
requirements from these different groups can
seem, well, fundamentally at odds sometimes.
Let's break down those demands. What are teachers,
the folks actually using this stuff in the classroom,
what are they looking for? Teachers, yeah, they
have some baseline needs. Things that are pretty
much non -negotiable if you want them to actually
use the tech effectively. First and foremost,
it absolutely has to be secure. It has to be
reliable. It has to be robust. I mean, think
about it. If the system is always crashing, or
if it's vulnerable and puts student data at risk,
it's worse than useless. It's actively harmful.
Totally. Reliability is table stakes. But that's
just the start, right? Teachers also need the
tech to let them and their students do specific
things, tasks that are actually necessary for
the curriculum, for learning, a rock -solid system
that doesn't actually help. teach or learn anything
useful that's just, you know, expensive furniture.
Exactly. Now, let's flip the coin. Look at the
IT professionals. They're also driven by the
same core mission supporting teaching and learning,
but they absolutely view the world through a
different lens, a lens of longevity, stability,
manageability. They must insist that any new
system aligns with good sound principles of IT
management. This is where they provide that crucial
reality check. And that reality check often boils
down to things like capacity and expertise, doesn't
it? Can we actually handle this thing? Precisely.
The IT team has to look at it and say, OK, can
we actually support this new system with the
people and the skills we have right now? It's
just not sustainable organizationally to bring
in some super specialized piece of software if
you don't have anyone on staff who knows how
to. fix it, update it, keep it secure five years
down the line. That really clarifies the conflict.
We used that car analogy before, and it fits
perfectly here, I think. The teacher might want
the fastest, flashiest sports car, you know,
packed with digital features to solve an immediate
need they have, speed, performance. But the IT
team, they have to step in and say, hold on,
we need to buy a reliable fleet vehicle, something
the existing mechanics in our garage actually
know how to fix, something we can afford to maintain,
get parts for easily. Otherwise you end up hiring
three new specialists in panics you can't afford,
or the car sits broken in the garage. It's that
constant tug of war desired function versus operational
reality. And if you don't find a way to reconcile
that tension, the whole initiative is likely
to fail. It just fizzles out or becomes a constant
headache. This is really where the committee
does its hardest work. The real work is that
simultaneous negotiation of what our sources
call the DCI triad. That's appropriate design,
proper configuration, and reasonable implementation.
OK. Let's pause on that DCI triad for a second
because that sounds like the core mechanism for
getting it right. How does getting one of those
wrong mess up the others? Can you give an example?
Sure. Think about it like this. You can have
a system that's, let's say, reasonably implemented,
meaning you did great training, the rollout seemed
smooth. But if the underlying design of the software
itself is maybe just not built for a large school
district, perhaps it can't handle thousands of
kids logging in at once, then your smooth implementation
doesn't matter. The system falls over. Ah, OK.
And configuration, where does that fit? Configuration
is like the crucial link in the chain. You might
pick the best design system out there, theoretically
perfect. But if your IT team configures it poorly,
maybe they set up the security permissions wrong,
or it doesn't integrate properly with existing
student databases, then the implementation, from
the teacher's perspective, is going to feel chaotic
and broken. So the committee's job is to constantly
check that all three design, configuration, implementation
are staying aligned throughout the whole process
before the final recommendation goes up. Which
really means they aren't just picking a product
off a shelf. They're vetting and approving a
whole synchronized process for weaving that product
into the school's daily life. Okay, so we understand
the players. We understand the intense negotiation
that has to happen with this DCI triad. Now for
the payoff, right? What does success actually
look like when a system improvement comes out
of this process? If they manage to nail that
DCI negotiation, what are the sort of ultimate
criteria? for a winning, truly sustainable outcome.
Right. The ultimate success, according to the
framework in our sources, is defined by what
we can call the MPS framework. Any resulting
system, any improvement must be manageable, predictable,
and sustainable. If it fundamentally fails on
any one of those three, then the core organizational
challenge hasn't actually been solved, even if
the tech looks cool. Okay, let's break those
down. Manageable. What does that mean specifically
in a school context? Is it just about IT workload?
Manageable definitely includes workload. but
it's broader. It refers to the overall operational
burden. Crucially, it has to be within the existing
technological capacity and expertise of the organization.
So for instance, if your IT team is really skilled
and certified in, say, a Windows environment,
suddenly rolling out a critical new system that
runs only on a niche Linux platform, That might
not be manageable. It immediately strains your
existing capacity, could lead to staff burnout,
and almost guarantees more system downtime because
nobody knows it well enough yet. Got it. That's
capacity. Predictable, though. Yeah. That sounds
like it speaks much more directly to the user
experience, the teachers. It absolutely does.
Predictability is just critical for teacher trust,
for avoiding chaos in the classroom. If teachers
can't reliably predict how the system will perform
day to day, If it works perfectly on Tuesday,
but then constantly glitches after a forced update
on Wednesday morning, it completely disrupts
teaching. And frankly, it just encourages teachers
to give up and find workarounds. Predictability
means it works reliably over time without nasty
surprises. Makes total sense. And the last one,
sustainable. That sounds like the long -term
budget reality check kicking in. It definitely
covers finance, but also scale. Sustainability
essentially means Can we actually do this at
the necessary scale across the whole district
or school for the long haul? We're talking a
minimum three to five year window both financially
and technically. You might manage to run an amazing
expensive pilot program in three classrooms for
one year with a special grant, but if there's
no realistic plan to scale that district -wide
for five years without needing massive new budget
lines every year or hiring a dozen new specialists
you don't have, well then it simply wasn't a
sustainable solution from the start. Wow, okay.
That MPS framework, manageable, predictable,
sustainable, ties it all together really nicely.
It shows the committee's success isn't just about
picking the tool with the fanciest features.
Not at all. It's really about making sure that
tool, however great it seems, actually fits the
school's operational reality. The capacity, the
need for predictability, the long -term scale.
They're essentially acting as guardians of realistic
long -term effectiveness, protecting the administrator,
and ultimately, protecting instructional time.
That really is the ultimate aim, yes. This whole
structure just confirms that EdTech decisions
aren't simple purchases. They are complex organizational
challenges. And effective administrators handle
that complexity by deliberately setting up a
process, the committee, to synthesize these diverse,
often conflicting perspectives from teachers,
from tech teams, from finance folks, to arrive
at conclusions that are actually implementable
and crucially sustainable. That's the key for
the long haul. It genuinely reframes how you
think about school technology choices, doesn't
it? It shifts it from just being about features
to being about, well, smart organizational governance.
So if that core challenge is really about balancing
what people want with what the organization can
realistically manage, predict and sustain. Here's
a final thought for you listening. What specific
organizational metrics should a school actually
track? Maybe things like teacher retention related
to tech frustration, or maybe unplanned IT maintenance
costs, or even actual classroom usage rates beyond
the first month to know if its steering committee
is truly succeeding. Beyond just keeping the
peace and reducing visible conflict. Something
to consider based on the framework we've explored
today.