On Oct. 6, MTEP 2.0 had a NIC-Cast focused on helping networked improvement communities (NICs) handle personnel turnover. You can now view the recording of the whole group portions of the NIC-Cast. You can also view a short recording of a poster [1] about turnover that was presented at the 2025 Transforming Institutions conference (scroll down to the Research Poster section).
Turnover can happen to NIC leaders (change agents), NIC members, or administrators (K-12 or higher education). It can take the form of people leaving (retiring, leaving an institution), joining (being hired or brought into the efforts), or roles in the NIC changing when people’s responsibilities change. We want to help NICs maintain or expand efforts through turnover, and not have turnover result in a NIC fizzling or losing momentum.
In planning for turnover, we encourage NIC leaders to consider the inter-related areas of communication, processes, logistics and documentation, and culture. (See image.)
In this article, we recap the NIC-Cast and synthesize notes taken through breakout group discussions at the NIC-Cast. First, we encourage you to plan for anticipated or hypothetical turnover related to different roles of NIC members and administrators your NIC works with. You will want to ask:
- Who is leaving or joining?
- What are their roles/responsibilities?
- What knowledge, skills, connections, and power do we need to replace?
- How will we learn about new people’s knowledge skills, connections, and power?
- How do we on-board new members?
A few notes: For sustainability, we need to document processes and update them regularly. From MTEP 2.0 research, NICs largely haven’t done this yet, but are encountering turnover. Part of turnover also is recruitment: convincing new people to be on board and/or join your NIC. You might focus recruitment efforts on the importance of the NIC work locally, how MTEP is (or could be) viewed, valued, and aligned with job responsibilities. Change agents have learned to persist and continue reaching out to potential NIC members if they start off saying they are too busy. One strategy change agents have used is to invite others to observe/join team meetings to help grow their interest in joining.
To prepare for handling logistics and documentation related to turnover, consider the following:
- Who is responsible for turnover logistics (updating folder sharing, IRB, website, calendar invites, etc.)?
- How are we intentionally documenting our change efforts?
- What documentation do or could we have to help on-boarding new people?
Notes from breakout group discussions included a range of topics related to logistics and documentation. For the most part, the NIC leader is the person in charge of handling turnover logistics. Documenting what we’re doing is important, so that someone else can pick it up and understand it and build on it. Documentation also helps with department reviews and annual faculty evaluations. Documentation should include the text for the website, reminders for how often to review and update the website, a list of the shared folders and who has access, and a list of shared passwords and who has access. Breakout group participants shared that an organizational documentation strategy they use is to have shared rolling meeting notes; keeping important links (to folders, other documents like PDSA cycles, etc.) at the top of the document; and using headings (document style) to create a clickable table of contents. Change agents mentioned that Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) documentation is very helpful for NIC documentation overall; when NICs use a spreadsheet version of PDSA cycle documentation, it is easy to see past efforts and how cycles build on each other.
Change agents also suggested two types of "about us" documents. One is akin to a team report, listing members, institutions, aims/goals and summaries of past work. Another type of about us document is to have a document or slide deck where each person adds a section or slide to introduce themselves with photos; people can add other information such as communication preferences (emails, documents, internal messaging).
To plan for sustainable processes in the face of turnover, you may want to consider:
- How do we incorporate ideas from new folks authentically, without losing momentum?
- How should we redistribute responsibilities and roles?
- How do we capture "institutional knowledge" of departing folks?
- How are we intentionally creating inclusive processes?
Breakout group participants discussed how to distinguish between MTEP work (with the NIC) and just regular job duties with secondary math teacher education; creating a distinction helps to understand what responsibilities and roles need to be replaced. In trying to incorporate ideas from new folx authentically, breakout group participants suggested focusing on big goals and what the NIC has been achieving so far. As different people come into jobs, they bring their own priorities, which may not align with the NIC’s goals. It can be a challenge to acknowledge new people’s ideas and goals without changing plans nonstop. One change agent suggested restating the group's main goal/aims at the start of each meeting, and creating a "parking lot" section of rolling notes documents to keep track of new ideas that don’t fit with current goals, so that the new ideas don’t get overlooked.
Change agents suggested figuring out a system to take notes on the "institutional knowledge" of NIC members and administrators, to make sure NICs are not always having to start over. One change agent suggested keeping a NIC leader and NIC member journal to document information; another change agent suggested some type of apprenticeship or shadowing model when turnover is anticipated and there can be some overlap in participation. Another change agent suggested making a video of NIC information about the work the NIC is doing.
To plan for sustainable communication in the face of turnover, you may want to consider:
- How are we intentional about communicating with various NIC members and administrators?
- How do we communicate our goals, strategies, and impacts both internally and externally?
- What modes of communication do we use?
Change agents suggest using multiple forms of communication, such as email, internal messaging, verbal during meetings, and padlets for brainstorming. One person suggested using collaborative working documents to keep some running notes about what to communicate with administrators, so that when occasionally having meetings with administrators, there is a coherent list of topics to discuss.
Rolling meeting notes are also a good asynchronous way to communicate. NICs may also keep a rolling list of products and strategic plans (and progress).
To communicate externally, change agents agreed that we have to get past the feeling that we are bragging. However, reframing efforts as external communication and targeting messages at specific audiences can help people see the value in our change efforts. Presenting NIC information and progress at regional or state math teacher or AMTE-affiliate conferences can be valuable external communication. Some change agents have hosted (or are planning to host) viewings of the documentary Counted Out to invite mathematicians and even community members into discussions.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, NIC culture needs to be part of intentionally planning to handle turnover. Questions change agents might ask include:
- How are we intentionally establishing a positive culture?
- What will we do to build trust with new members?
- How do we gain support from new administrators?
- How are we ensuring multiple connections of people across departments or institutions?
- How do we set, update, and communicate our group norms?
Breakout group participants noted all the connections across these topics, such as how documentation and processes contribute to and communicate culture. One NIC does a "roll call" during NIC meetings to find out what everyone is doing and what they would like to work on in the coming weeks. Participants also talked about how communication and documentation can build up shared institutional knowledge, which helps sustain efforts through turnover.
We strongly suggest each NIC create a written turnover plan that attends to culture, logistics and documentation, processes, and communication, with consideration for different responsibilities of people who may leave, join, or change roles (including NIC leaders, NIC members and administrators). NICs might treat a turnover plan as a series of PDSA cycles, taking some time across the next few months to work on each piece of their plan. It will be harder to test this plan without ongoing turnover, but NICs can consider sharing their documentation with other NICs or with colleagues who are not part of the NICs to ask for feedback.
A subset of the Nebraska team has a new track 1 IUSE project called Sustaining Undergraduate STEM Transformation And Improvement Networks through Change Agent Turnover (SUSTAIN CAT), which will be developing and piloting a change agent toolkit to better understand how STEM educational change networks sustain themselves and their efforts when people leave or shift roles. In Spring 2026, the SUSTAIN CAT project will be extending MTEP 2.0 NICs an opportunity to pilot the CAT Toolkit.
References
1. Smith, W., & Pomykal Franz, D. (2025, June 9-11). Sustaining change efforts through turnover: Exploring and reflecting on effective leadership strategies [Poster presentation]. Transforming Institutions Conference, St. Louis, MO, United States.