Mapping the Way Forward Beyond the 100 Days
Mapping the Way Forward Beyond the 100 Days
Some strategic choices need to be made at the end of each 100-Day Challenge. A discussion among the Challenge Strategist, Team Coach, and Team Leader would be useful for gathering different perspectives and then involving some of the other leadership stakeholders in making the final decisions on these choices.
There are three paths forward for the next 100-Day Challenge Sprint(s).
Reset Path
The Team may need and want to run around the same track one more time to consolidate the gains they made, and to ensure that these can be sustained. They also may want to challenge themselves to achieve an even more ambitious goal – to move the goal post higher than in the previous 100 days.
In this case, leaders will challenge the same team to stay on the same track for another 100 days, and to focus on achieving a higher goal, or on smoothing the track so the higher pace of performance can be sustained in the long term.
Build Path
There may a natural progression from one focus area to another. For example, in TVETs, this could be a progression from “breaking the silence” on gender-based violence (survivors coming forward and reporting incidents) to “healing the wounds” (survivors receiving proper care and services). Or there may a number of other unrelated focus areas that emerged during the conversations with leadership stakeholders while setting the stage for this 100-Day Challenge, or that became apparent during the past 100 days.
For example, it may have become evident while the team was working on Breaking the Silence that there was an impenetrable brick wall of silence when it comes to violence against the gay and lesbian community in the University. This could become the focus of the next 100-Day Challenge.
In this case, a different team would be challenged to make progress on this new focus area. To use the relay race metaphor, this would involve staying in the same stadium, but building a new track for the next team to sprint on.
Scale Path
The 100-Day Challenge may have shown that progress can be made if specific changes are introduced, and that these changes are easily replicable in other locations. For example, the 100-Day Team may have succeeded in significantly reducing GBVF case backlog by introducing a triage system for handling cases. This solution could be offered up to many other courts that are interested in reducing case backlog, as part of their own 100-Day Challenges.
In this case, multiple teams in different courts will be challenged to reduce backlog, building on the work of the 100-Day Challenge Team that just completed its sprint.
In the relay race analogy, this path involves building new tracks in several stadiums, all with the same design as the one the current team sprinted on. Each team running on a track will customise their track and their sprint, based on this own context.
Here’s Some Guidance on How to Navigate each Path
"Reset" Path
The Team often feels it still has some “unfinished business” at the of the 100 days: some experiments to run, some steps they need to take to communicate to others in their organisation(s) about what they have done, about process changes they introduced, new forms and tracking charts they are using, new roles they created during the 100 days, and so on.
Getting others on board with these changes can be critical to enable the performance and impact achieved during the 100 days to be sustained over the long haul.
The Team can use the next 100 days for this consolidation process – to build up the systems so they can support higher performance.
The Challenge Strategist, Team Coach and Team Leader can discuss this and decide whether this is part of the way forward. Then the process can follow the same steps to get a 100-Day Challenge Team to the Starting Gate (Start-Up Workshop)
Team Coach is selected. Most likely, this will be the same Coach who supported the Team that just completed its 100-Day Challenge.
Team members are selected. This is an opportunity for the Team Coach to check with team members to find out who would like to take a break from bring on a 100-Day Team. It may be useful to add new members to the Team, especially if the new Challenge includes putting new systems and processes in place.
A new Challenge Note is prepared. This may focus on consolidation and sustainability; for example: “Your challenge, over the next 100 days, will be to adjust the processes, systems and roles in the court so we can maintain zero backlog on GBVF cases in 2025”.
The Challenge Strategist will need to consult with other leadership stakeholders, or at least socialise these decisions with them, before the Team has its Start-Up Workshop and before its next 100-Day Sprint gets underway.
"Build" Path
This follows the same path of the getting any 100-Day Challenge underway, with leadership stakeholders deciding on a focus area, designating a Team Coach, and selecting 100-Day Team members. Except now, the choice of a focus area could be influenced by the experience of the past 100 days.
The short list of focus areas might include:
- The focus areas that were on the short list when setting the stage for the last 100-Day Challenge
- The next logical focus area, building on the 100-Day Challenge the Team just completed
- A new focus area that emerged from the work of the 100-Day Team.
Guidance on all of this is provided in weeks minus 3 (Engaging Leadership Stakeholders) and minus 2 (Preparing Challenge Note & Recruiting the Team).
Bear in mind the following:
"Scale" Path
How does one go from one 100-Day Challenge to a dozen, in one step? The key lies in two words:
Marketing
Simplification!
Let’s use the example cited earlier. The 100-Day Team succeeded in significantly reducing GBVF case backlog by introducing a triage system for handling cases. And there is an opportunity for spreading this practice across all courts that have a large case backlog.
The first instinct of leaders may be to mandate this practice in all courts, or to communicate the story of this 100-Day Challenge to all court managers and expect that they will adopt this practice based on the logic of it.
These methods might work. But we suggest a different way that is much more likely to succeed: Help others leaders organize “Copycat 100-Day Challenges” in their courts.
The first step is to convene court managers or to get invited to one of their convenings, and to ask the 100-Day Challenge Team to tell their story to the managers, in as dramatic a way as possible. This is the marketing work. You’d like several court managers to raise their hand and say “I’d like to make this happen this in my court”.
Then, the interested court managers can be invited to become Challenge Strategists in their own courts, and to focus specifically on case backlog. Here’s where the simplification comes in:
All the new Challenge Strategists need to do is to designate a Coach for each 100-Day Team. Or they can play the role of he Coach since the process will be simpler and more streamlined than a “first time on the track” 100-Day Challenge.
Organising these new Challenge Strategists in their own WhatsApp Group, and forming similar groups for the Team Leaders and teams will help create a sense of community, and it will foster both cross-learning and healthy competition.
Copycat Path in Animation
See the short animated video below on Copycat 100-Day Challenges.
Strategy as an Evolving Portfolio of 100-Day Challenges
The animation below tracks how 100-day Challenges on prevention of HIV/AIDS in Eritrea evolved from a handful of projects in the central region to a growing portfolio of projects across the country: some following the Build path (next logical focus area), and some the Scale Path (copycat 100-Day Challenges in other geographies).
