Implementation teams are groups of individuals who are charged with monitoring and supporting each step of Plan-Do-Check-Act. They can include ECE staff (for example, administrators and practitioners) and stakeholders (for example, community members, parents, technical assistance providers, and experts). In the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief mentioned previously, the authors (Metz and colleagues) state the following: “Ideally, teams should be established at every level of a program or system or to target different aspects of an initiative. For example, for a complex initiative such as a state-wide implementation of an early childhood assessment, separate implementation teams may be established at the state, regional, district, and school levels to monitor and support the initiative.”[24]

The work of going from an idea to daily operations (in other words, from planning to doing) is done by teams of individuals, often called implementation teams. Teams have key responsibilities to guide the PDCA process, ensure implementation, engage community members, and create an environment conducive to implementation. Teams should include members who represent varied perspectives on the project, for example, from teaching young children to program administration to policy.

Teams are critical to success. Evidence suggests that the use of competent implementation teams can produce a higher rate of success. In one study, over 80 percent of the locations where implementation teams were used were able to sustain the initiative for six or more years. This is in contrast to previous research where implementation teams were not part of the implementation plan; for example, in one such study, only 14 percent of sites sustained the innovation.[25] As Higgins, Weiner, and Young state, “Implementation Teams have been called a new lever for organization change in education.”[26]

An Integrated Stage-Based Framework for Implementation of Early Childhood Programs and Systems provides detailed information on teams (for example, selection and membership, communication protocols, and meeting frequency). The brief uses the stages of implementation science, which closely mirror the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, as the framework.[27]