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Features

active educators, retired educators, non-members, and other relevant individuals who may present a
different perspective. A Critical Friend worked with the state organization team to help them address
these problems of practice by asking difficult and sometimes challenging questions
as the team continued to identify inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes.
To begin the process, the team needed to identify a problem of practice—
or Problem Statement. Deep conversations occurred when teams reflected
on the root causes of the problem, asking “Why was this a problem?”
The Critical Friend assigned to the team repeatedly asked “why” each time
a barrier or root cause was brought up until the team could no longer answer or
there was an “aha” moment that illuminated the problem. Root causes were
acknowledged and stated in the plan because it was important to address
and recognize the impact the causes had on the problem. Members
acknowledged the barriers that had prevented success in the past
as they developed their action plan and timeline for implementation.
State organization teams developed measurable outcomes and identified
inputs (resources needed), action plan (activities), outputs (evidence), and
outcomes (results). The leadership team assigned appropriate state committees to various activities to
build buy-in at the state level. Teams were asked to generate a short list of key questions so that other
leadership teams could consider them while giving feedback. The international president randomly chose
10 state organizations to display their models to get feedback from other attendees. Feedback, both oral
and written, was overwhelmingly positive regarding the activity. Many stated it was extremely valuable to
spend time talking about their state organization’s specific problem and then be able to generate potential
solutions with reasonable timeline expectations. State organization presidents posted the state model they
had developed at SOLT for feedback and discussion in Basecamp, a virtual project management platform.
Here are some examples of the different state plans that were developed at training. Note that formatting
reflects that used by the specific state organization.

Oregon
Problem of practice: Oregon is losing DKG members at a rate of approximately 10% per year, which
makes the state organization weaker.
Root causes:
1) Lack of knowledge of opportunities available to DKG members.
2) DKG activities that aren’t relevant to some members.
3) DKG members not feeling connected.
Theory of action: If all levels of the state organization (chapter, district, state) collaborate to develop a plan
of action, then retention of members will be increased.
Action steps:
• District coordinator and membership committee develop presentation/workshop to address
retention of Oregon DKG members.
• The state organization’s membership chair and chapter membership chairs plan a presentation/
workshop to address retention of Oregon DKG members.
• Chapter membership chairs/representatives plan/present a workshop to address retention of DKG
members at the chapter level.
• All stakeholders evaluate plans using membership data.

6 · Volume 90-4
6 · Volume 90-4