The Planning Process

Sorry to the few of you that follow my blog for missing last week, however, the ski hill called and I answered.

"Appreciative Inquiry" is a process of looking at things from a positive mindset, that is, what's going right and how do we get more of it.  This is in contrast to the traditional planning model that comes at things from a deficit perspective, ie what are we not doing well and therefore what do we need to do to improve.  While it is important to know where deficiencies exist, it is more important to know what is going well within those areas and amplify them.  It has been said that "we show value by what we pay attention to".  As a school we need to pay attention to the great things that are happening in our work so that this attitude becomes pervasive in our school and we focus on the good, not the negative.

Appreciative Inquiry is not a sort of Pollyanna process where we only look at good things.  It allows us to tease out of issues the parts that are going right and then focus on getting more of it.  Even in areas of weakness there are examples of positives, these are the ideas that we seize on and use as the foundation to continue to build excellence for our school.

As we head into our annual planning cycle and begin to examine goal areas for the 2010/2011 school year, we will look at what's right with our school and how to continue on that path, rather than focusing on what's wrong and the downward spiral that brings.