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Kathleen Reilly
I. Identified Issue
Schoology was founded in 2009 and has rapidly grown to reach more than 20 million
people in 130 countries (SchoologyInc.,2017). Jeremy Friedman, CEO and co-founder, has
demonstrated the success of his team-based model through five consecutive years of triple-digit
growth (V.Rivero,2017) In the past five years, Schoology has developed tremendously,
however, in the next few years Friedman states that there is a focus to expand in markets,
As a relatively new company, Schoology has taken on major clients and created
partnerships and integrations with leading educational tools. For instance, in the K-12 market,
Schoology is a client of the Los Angeles School District, made up over 600,000 students.
PowerSchool, the leading K-12 education technology provider that serves over 100 million
people (Schoology Inc., 2017). While these are large strides in the world of educational
technology, in the field of Higher Education, Schoology competes against leaders such as,
Blackboard, Moodle, and Infrastructure Campus. Recently, the 2017 CODiE Awards named
Schoology as the Best Higher Education Enterprise Solution (Schoology Inc., 2017). Notably, a
great honor and proof of continued expansion into this market. However, Blackboards learning
management system and educational tools are used in 75 percent of colleges and universities
(BloombergL.P,2017)). In order to replicate the growth seen at Schoology in the last five years,
it is imperative to take a reflective look at the internal set up within the organization for areas of
growth.
corporate world to increase product quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Schoology, a
leader in learning management systems, follows this trend as supported by one of the companys
communicated core values; collaboration. While this value actually represents an effort and
uses a team-based model, made up of a Support, Client Success, Sales/Marketing, and Product
Design/Engineering. Each of these teams has their own form of communication, focused data
points, and knowledge management. At Schoology, then, the issue is that there is a need to
satisfaction, in order to best meet the needs of current and prospective clients.
It is no secret that organizations known for customer service have generally happier
clients. It is also no surprise that having happy clients can result in obtaining a positive image
that may bring on more clients. In its current state, Schoology has maintained positive
relationships with those they have onboard. However, with growing numbers daily, it can
become a challenge to meet the needs of so many clients. So, how important is customer service
and satisfaction? Also, what teams fall under this customer service umbrella? Of course, Client
Success and the Support teams have the most interaction with clients and are most typically
recognized as the soldiers of customer service. However, the Sales team utilizes these skills to
form initial impressions of the customer experience with Schoology. Although, not interacting
direction, Product Design and Engineering, must prioritize requests and issues to properly serve
A case study conducted by Komal Chopra (2014), revealed the necessity of each team in
the customer service process. The study revealed that the four most prominent factors that affect
customer satisfaction are related to helpfulness in meeting expectations, caring, cooperation, and
problem solving. Data was collected using a rank order scale from 1-5, using behavioral
attributes (Chopra, K., 2014). Each of these components relate to the different teams within
Schoology. The sales team helps clients meet and accept expectations. The support and success
teams thrive in caring and cooperation with clients. The product development and support teams
work with clients to problem solves. Highlighting these ideologies as values in customer service
Although Schoology has proven very successful using teams over the past five years,
their client base is rapidly growing. The teams will need to adapt and grow as the client-base
does. With a growth in the number of people, effective collaboration can become more difficult
and positive customer satisfaction ratings can harder to maintain. Currently, teams use different
Asdemonstratedinthe(2005)studybyJuliaKotlarskyandIlanOshri,knowledgesharingand
collaborativetoolswerehighlightedasaspectsofsuccessfulcollaboration.Insteadof
navigatingtoindividualteamplatformsortrackingdownmembersfromotherteams,thereisa
needforasinglecollaborativetechnologicaltoolthatcanbeusedtosharecustomersatisfaction
datapointsthroughoutthecompany,inordertoinfluencedecision-making.
by the current actions within the company. The need for an emphasis on customer satisfaction
and an efficient source of communication are equally important in obtaining this long-term
financial success. Long-term financial performance should be greater for those firms that
successfully achieve dual emphasis - enhancing both customer satisfaction and efficiency
Within this plan, there is leadership at multiple levels. However, the ultimate goal of the
leaders is to create a community where employees feel like there is purpose in their efforts and
work. This plan will utilize the present team structures to disperse responsibilities creating a
In the past, issues were communicated through word of mouth or by navigating to the different
essential value to the achievement in an organization. Both the giving and receiving of this
knowledge is of equal importance, emphasizing even further how vital effective communication
and collaboration between teams is (Fullan, 2002). Using Fullans Knowledge-Sharing Paradigm
as a model, Schoologys teams would receive and give knowledge into the database, ASANA, to
The figure above demonstrates the passing of knowledge between teams and leadership
in this plan. The blue arrows represent the giving and receiving of knowledge from the
data-sharing software, ASANA. The red arrows represent the resulted collaboration between
teams as they input new data and draw conclusions from previous data. Notably, the leadership
team is a part of this continuum. In this model, there is also a leader from each team within the
departments. The Leadership Team is on the continuum, because they are a team-based group
that will be making decisions and using data received and given to inform decisions.
Those in leadership roles will need to know how to identify when to make changes based
on the data collected and the insight gathered from teams. Leaders will create a community of
practice where reflection and communication are emphasized. Creating an ongoing community
of practice will focus on the social aspect of learning [placing] emphasis on the person as a
social participant (Wenger, 2006) therefore making them feel empowered to be a part of the
change that forms the objectives for the plan. Ultimately, the clients are affected by this plan,
however the main stakeholders in affected by this technology integration are the employees, at
all levels. Information regarding this plan will be shared in ASANA. Leaders will monitor the
Team Dashboard, created by ASANA. Here, employees will have a profile that personalizes the
data, identifying employees with a team and data point, putting faces to the data (Sharatt &
Fullan, 2011). Image 1 demonstrates the Dashboard View for an employee using ASANA of
current goals and progress toward those goals. Stakeholders will also open to a team page where
teams can communicate prior to and after team meetings, as see in Image 2.
Leadership Issues
Leaders may face issues regarding people sharing the correct knowledge in effective
Ways. At Schoology, team members are well-versed in their own matrices, but why certain data
is important to customer service may not be clear to other teams. Knowledge lies less in its
databases than in its people (Brown and Duguid, 2002, pg. 12). This emphasized how vital it is
that leadership keep teams informed of the reasons why certain data points are so relevant.
Additionally, it highlights another issue, making sure that the leaders are communicating
findings into ASANA regularly. Notably, not everyone even has access to all of the information
provided by the multiple databases used throughout the company. Without the communication
Aside from recognizing the most important trends and data points, organizations
sometimes flounder when it comes to the transfer and use of knowledge (Fullan, 2002). In this
particular plan, there are multiple transfers of knowledge between formative assessment periods,
as well as, prior to the annual assessment. In this case, deadlines must be clear and leaders must
be prompt in meeting them. Additionally, the action planning steps within the multi-tiered teams
will combat floundering, however each action plan must have a clearly defined purpose formed,
A common issue in relation to data for leaders to be wary of is the anchoring trap
(Hammond,Keeney,&Raiffa,1998).Eachoftheleadersarepartofdepartmentalizedteams,
therefore,likelythefirstdatatheywillseeistheirown.Whenconsideringadecisioninthe
actionplanningprocess,itisvitalthatleaderskeepanopen-mind,analyzingalldatapointsand
notfixatingonthepointsandmetricsdevelopedfromtheirownteam.Whilethisissueis
somewhatsubconscious,anapproachleadersmaywanttotakeislookingatthedatashared
fromotherteamsfirst.Additionally,leaderscouldfocusondeterminingpatternsandfinding
relationships,thereforeopeningtheirmindtodifferentdata-pointsinfluencingdecisions,rather
thananchoringtotheirown.Thesestrategieswillassistleadersinexaminingdifferent
perspectivesbyusingdifferentstartingpointsinASANA.Thenewmodelforteamsprevents
anchoringbetweenpeople,asthegoalistocreateandopencommunicationbetweenall
employees.
Another issue that may hinder leaders in this plan is the overconfidence trap (Hammond,
Keeney,&Raiffa,1998).ThisissueisrelevantbecauseofthesuccessthatSchoologyhashad.
Asmentioned,Schoologyhasgrowntohavemillionsofusersallovertheworld.Someleaders
maybeconfidentinthecurrentprocessesthattheywillnotlookforfutureopportunitiesof
growthorwanttochangecurrentpractices.However,aswehaveseen,thefieldofeducational
technologyhastakenoffandcompaniesneedtoadaptpracticesandexpandwiththem.
Currently, the organization of Schoology is made up of around 200 employees that work
in their headquarters in New York City and remotely. Of these employees, there are pre-existing
Founders and Directors. Each team has multiple managers that run smaller teams within them.
For instance, on the Client Success team, there are smaller teams based on the size of clients and
educational level: K-12, Enrollment: Under 5,000. Because of the multiple tiered levels within
the organization, there are many different platforms used to organize content within teams, such
as Confluence, HipChat, ASANA, ZenDesk Ticketing System, JIRA, and Salesforce. Naturally,
all of these bookmarks fill the web browsers of most employees. Most commonly, ASANA is a
project and task manager software that is used on smaller teams. For this plan, ASANA will be
the universal collaborative knowledge and data tracking platform for Schoology. Using the
Decision-Making Model from the Center of Collaborative Education, this software will be used
as an ongoing data tracking platform incorporating multiple customer satisfaction data points.
This plan will be revealed at already scheduled monthly in-person synchronous company
meetings. Updates on overall Customer Satisfaction findings will be shared to the company as
well as the process that took place over the previous month between teams.
multiple fields of data will need to be collected from different teams to measure overall customer
satisfaction. After the announcement of the collaborative movement to share data in ASANA,
there will be meetings with leadership and smaller team meetings to discuss presented data
points. The purpose of integration this tool is to help employees effectively collect, analyze, and
report data in meaningful ways (Mandinach, 2012) to have an impact on overall customer
new markets.
For this particular plan, collecting perception data is extremely important. Each time a
client interacts with an employee, they are sent a rank order scale survey rating their experience
with Schoology. Perception data is a key point in measuring the success of employee-based
action plans. This data is vital in the understanding of client opinions of their experience with
Schoology. Leaders will be responsible for communicating these metrics from their outsourced
team-based software and will communicate team analysis and reflection. This data protocol will
draw data from each of these different sources for the company, at large, to view and assess.
Achievement data in this field references the successes that Schoology has with a client. For
example, if 9/10 feature requests were fulfilled for a client, that will be a high achievement stat
that likely would reflect in customer satisfaction. Demographic data will help to analyze trends
Notably, the given metrics are a starting point, as value of different metrics may change
as teams reflect and go through the action-planning process. However, initially all of the above
data will be noted as a baseline at the start of the fiscal year. For the baseline data, averages will
be collected, however demographic and achievement data will also be stored in account profiles.
Once goals have been determined, plans will be created in the action planning process. Progress
tracking charts will be associated with each plan. The images below represent a chart tracking
progress and ASANAs methods for tracking tasks associated with created plans:
In relation to Schoology, the progress toward the goal, would demonstrate an increase in
customer satisfaction. Task lists could denote actions for each team or team member, such as,
sending a follow-up email even though an issue has already been solved for a client. These
actions would be noted in association to the current initiative and when data is analyzed, teams
will reflect on the effect tasks completed had on the current monthly metrics.
Notably, client data is not the only data that is relevant in this plan. This plan involves the
measure the success of the implementation of ASANA, perception surveys will be required for
employees to take as a baseline, mid-year checkpoint, and annually. The survey will address
team members opinion of the platform and action planning processes. The survey will ask if
employees feel that their opinion is valuable and heard using ASANA. Also, it will ask
employees how often they use the platform and on a scale how useful they find the shared
data-points. Additionally, leaders will use metrics from ASANA to determine how often
employees are logging in and which data dashboard tracking monitor they visit most. As a result
of meeting their needs, it is assumed that better communication and community building will
result. With great communication and community, employees will be best-able to assist clients
and increase customer satisfaction. Internal metrics and perception data will be addressed during
the annual assessment to determine success and next steps for continued collaborative knowledge
successfulcollaborationespeciallywhenusingcollaborativetools(Kotlarsky&Oshri,2005).
Collaborativetools,suchasASANA,formofsocialtiesandknowledgesharingnecessaryfor
successfulcollaboration.
Identifying Challenges
Using the cyclical collaborative problem solving process, there is constantly a time for
reflection and a system of checks and balances. This system of checks and balances is
exemplified through the multiple formative, monthly assessments and project plans involving
members of all levels of the company. However, each of these checkpoints and plans have
challenges of their own, such as emphasizing the goals and purpose of the overarching plan, the
correct and most effective data being analyzed and issues with leadership.
In regard to the data being shared, the purpose of using ASANA as a collaborative
entire organization. However, if there is an overload of data, it could lose meaning and
practicesbutfirstmustbecomedataliterateinordertousedata(Mandinach,2012).This
emphasizestheimportanceinsettingpurposeforthisplan.Whilethisplanlaysoutspecific
typesofdataandquestionsthatwillbeaddressedandgeneratedfromeachteam,usingthe
cyclical reflective process, these points may change based on noticed patterns and trends.
Additionally, employees will not only need to know what data points most greatly affect their
team, but also what these data points mean, and why they matter. Also, as assessments reveal
information about clients, leadership may decide to narrow the scope of focus for the month.
Using the collaborative process, goals would be communicated through the universal platform
Another challenge that this initiative will face are clearly defined purposes for the overall
initiative and for the implemented projects and plans. It is equally as important to make sure that
employees are informed for all informations independence and extent, it is people, in their
communities, organizations and institutions, who ultimately decide what it all means and why it
matters (Brown and Duguid, 2000, p. 18). Setting purpose and communicating what this data
means and why it matters from top to bottom. These meetings and the creation of a team page
with dashboards renders itself a waste of time if there is no purpose or action explicitly aligned
to viewing and analyzing the data. Similarly, this purpose will set the commitment of employees
at all levels.
Action Planning
As mentioned, any action plan put in place, will impact all employees of Schoology in a
different way, therefore there will be a monthly team process used to efficiently inform and
ASANA will be used to communicate the current action plan. Because this Data-Driven
Design Plan is ongoing, the current plan will change based on the need or known issue at that
time. As discussed in the Data Analysis, Leadership managers will input noted and relevant
Customer Service Data Points that their team has gathered and make them universally known to
employees of Schoology through ASANA. New data, containing results from the previous
At the end of the first week of the new month, the leadership team will meet to compare
the new data points to last months data, noting any differences. Once this analysis is complete,
team leaders will break out into their department teams to look at the data and share the analysis
from the leadership team. In these smaller department meetings, employees will examine data
points and determine ways that they could have had an influence on this data as a team or
personally. For instance, if the Perception data provided demonstrates a decrease in Customer
Satisfaction from the interactions clients had with the Support team, the department team may
determine that they could work on their response times or perhaps they may want to look into
additional development and training in an issue that came up in the previous month. The leader
of the team will take notes during the meeting adding the suggestions and hypotheses from the
smaller teams. Both the leadership and department team meetings will use an agenda based after
the Classroom-Focused Improvement Process (CFIP), which has been implemented within
schools to communicate goals to multiple teams vertically, with the grade level, and throughout
the school. This model focuses on continued improvement, which complements the overarching
goal of this plan. Tasks can be tracked and documented in ASANA during and after the meeting.
At that point, the Leadership team will gather again around the 15th of the month to
prioritize the input and reflections from the smaller department teams. Using this information,
leadership will make decisions based on the data and collaborative input of all of the employees.
By the beginning of the next month, at the company meeting, the newest action plan, with clearly
communicated goals will be shared. Actions such as increased training, incentives, etc. will be
announced and will be noted in an ASANA plan as part of the to-do list and will be assigned to
teams. In this communal synchronous session, employees will have the opportunity to take
ownership of the known data points and suggested future action plans. Instead of the action and
data analysis coming directly from leaders, all employees will feel like they were a part of the
next steps. Using a universal tracking platform and sharing software allows all employees to
assess their personal or team progress toward accomplishing the goals shared at the monthly
company meeting.
Annual Assessment
Before reaching the Annual Assessment stage of this plan, the organization as a whole
and the department teams would have taken part in ongoing data analysis and organizational
formative assessment. Each monthly meeting would serve as a formative assessment of desired
outcomes leading up to the new fiscal year, which would serve as the summative assessment. In
fact, the organization as a whole would have gone through each stage of the Collaborative
Problem-Solving Process, eleven times prior to the Assessment being an annual value. The
annual assessment will be conducted as a larger scale monthly, company meeting. However,
prior to the sharing of the year-long data, the Marketing team will be in charge of gathering data
points from ASANA from the previous year, condensing them, prioritizing, and determining
successes and areas of need for the company. Like the monthly meetings, goals will be set.
However at the annual meeting, for accountability, overall goals for each team will be posted on
an ASANA page and will also be written on the Welcome Wall at the entrance to the office. The
directors and founders will hold a meeting between team leaders to determine successes and
points of growth in regard to this plan and in regard to their departmentalized team. This way,
the leader of the department team can set goals with their employees prior to announcing them at
While this plan does not explicitly address cultural competence or gaps, there are ways n
which there can be an impact addressing these fields. For instance, teams will be collaborating to
finds trends in our data to address needs of future clients. The mission of Schoology is to
advance what is possible in education (Schoology, 2017). Our learning management system is
actively used in schools around the world, each with their own unique demographic data. As an
organization, our platform is designed to meet the needs of many, opening the doors to
personalization and differentiation while making the availability of resources available in one
platform.
One future data point to examine in our mission to advance education for everyone,
would include examining demographic data vs. perception data in low-income schools. This
question would create a sub-category of clients addressing how well Schoology does at
advancing education for low-income students. Having a platform where the data-points can be
collaborated on and analyzed as a team, will allow for such future endeavors.
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