Sprint 5 - Distributing the Ability to Solve

Sprint Objective – To appreciate the current challenges and limitations of key actors and create effective pathways to improve and sustain their ability to co-create and share value.

We have identified the ecosystem actors (across communities, civil society, government and markets) with whom we wish to respond to the objectives of the participants and the assets of other ecosystem actors that can be leveraged to co-create diverse and contextual solutions. Though critical to solving, these actors may not have the ability to implement change at scale, enable other implementers and / or innovate contextual solutions. Hence, it is important to develop and / or enhance the ability of these actors to do so. Ability can be seen from five lenses:

• Clarity: Does every actor know what they need to do and why it is important? For example, are all Primary Health Centre (PHC) leaders aware of the role they must play to enable community health workers (CHWs) and improve their effectiveness in meeting community needs?

• Capability: Does every actor have the skills, knowledge and expertise to do what they need to do? For example, do all PHC leaders have the skills, knowledge and expertise to engage with and enable CHWs to understand needs of the community and improve health outcomes?

• Capacity: Does every actor have the time and resources to do what they need to do? For example, do all PHC leaders have adequate budgets and staff to be able to develop the abilities of CHWs on time? Do they have the resources to sustain this on an ongoing basis?

• Collaboration: Can every actor easily customise or co-create their “how” with other actors in the ecosystem to meet their contextual needs? For example, can a PHC leader develop their own CHW capacity building program based on the needs of the rural community they serve?

• Cooperation: Do actors reach out to support each other in responding to an unanticipated situation with reliability and urgency? For example, will multiple PHC leaders come together and respond to a local health crisis (such as one induced by an epidemic or a natural disaster)?

It is important to develop a pragmatic assessment of ability seen through the five lenses above for each type of actor we are orchestrating the change “with”, whose assets we are “leveraging” and sometimes the participants we are building the ecosystem “for”. This must inform the focus areas for action.

To develop and / or enhance the ability of actors, we need to create environments (opportunities, platforms, convenings etc.) where they can engage, learn and co-create. These environments could be online (digital) or in-person (physical). Actors may be able to engage, learn and co-create themselves (self-serve) or need a facilitator (assisted). They should have the options and agency to decide.

At scale, diverse actors need diverse environments that are responsive to their individual and local context, and access to resources. It is important that such environments do not become centralised but are distributed across the ecosystem. Ease of access and proximity to such environments are critical to enable widespread participation by actors innovating for their local needs. In this sprint, we will identify the actions / initiatives to develop and distribute the ability to solve across the key actors of the ecosystem.

Reimagining Education Leadership

To better appreciate the sprint journey, we are following the story of how ShikshaLokam has been developing 4.5 million education system leaders in India. For this sprint, we will illustrate the way ShikshaLokam assessed the ability of key actors and enabled pathways for co-creation.

As ShikshaLokam began engaging deeply with key actors in the ecosystem, they realised that while all of them were motivated to improve education outcomes, their ability to translate intent into sustained action varied greatly. Through ShikshaLokam’s early work with diverse actors, it became evident that:

• There was limited clarity among the “For” actors (education leaders) about what leadership meant and its transformative role. Often, their work was limited to administrative compliance.

• There were capability gaps among “For” as well as “With” actors. While some education leaders had instructional expertise, few had the skills to solve problems and enable others to solve problems. Among civil society organisations, government institutions and more there was low capability to orchestrate government partnerships, design for scale and unlock relevant funding.

• There were capacity constraints among “For” and “With” actors. Education leaders juggled multiple mandates and had little resources and support to prioritise leadership development. Civil society organisations had no resources to engage in network-building and knowledge exchange.

• There were very few collaboration spaces for “With” actors to come together, share and co-create. Only ad-hoc opportunities for cooperation existed when there was a need to respond to emergent challenges, which were mostly dependent on individual local relationships.

Instead of enhancing leadership in a select few individuals, ShikshaLokam wanted to enable everyone to develop their leadership. Towards this, ShikshaLokam designed multiple spaces, or environments, where actors could develop their abilities and co-create. These environments were designed to be accessible and easy to use again and again. A few examples of these environments are:

• A digital platform where education leaders could learn from peers, self-assess, participate in improvement programmes at their own pace and more. Education institutions, officials and civil society organisations could co-create programmes and solutions as appropriate.

• Once the need for mentoring surfaced, a National Mentoring Mission was designed, supported by a digital platform to enable learning between peers and experts in an interactive way.

• Co-creation sandboxes, state-level collectives, leadership learning circles, and communities of practice across education institutions and civil society organisations were created.

Then, they turned towards identifying the infrastructure needed to bring together their efforts at scale… More in the Next Sprint!

Please reflect on these questions from your perspective.

• What challenges and limitations (along the 5Cs above) do key actors face today?

• What abilities (along the 5Cs above) do these actors have, need or need more of?

• What mechanisms (in-person / online) exist to develop the abilities of key actors?