What Is Capacity Building? How Does It Fit Into Implementation Science?
August 28, 2024 – When you think of implementation, you likely think of how to begin or revive a specific thing such as a program, practice, or another organizational change you hope will stick. This is true, but it is a limited view. There is another layer of successful implementation that you cannot always see, and here at ACJI we believe it is essential: capacity.
Do you have the human power to sustain a new program? Does the practice support your organization’s North Star? Does the program or practice fall within one of the team’s highest-impact strategies?
When trying to shift a team, organization, or even an entire system, the focus is on what we and other implementation scientists call implementation capacity building. It is the work that needs to be done to set an organization up to do its best, most aligned work for years to come.
Implementation capacity building involves:
- Getting clear on WHY the organization (or team) exists
- Identifying the problems you are best suited to solve
- Defining and supporting a positive org culture
- Identifying the rules, habits, mindsets, policies, and practices that are most aligned with your future best organizational selves and keeping them (and losing the rest)
Side note: Many ACJI Academy Alumni report a better understanding of their selves, too. While our program focuses on justice and human services fields, many of the concepts translate across all industries and even into homes. Need to get everyone to agree on dinner? We have a tool for that.
Using The Why Triangle To Visualize Organizational Capacity
Let’s look at a tool we introduce in ACJI’s Implementation Leadership Academy called The Why Triangle. This tool helps to align your organization’s why with the people of your organization.
Bottom Of The Triangle: Be Real About Time
Looking at the bottom of the image, you see the connection between individuals and what they spend their time doing. When there is a disconnect between individuals and their tasks, you often see fidelity issues, meaning individuals might be doing tasks but not doing them well, or worse, not doing them at all – and all of this interferes with outcomes. When you are following Implementation Science, you create what we call an implementation team. They support the highest level of work.When you are following implementation science, you create what we call an implementation team. These folks are at the center of the Why Triangle and support the highest level of work.
Left Side Of The Triangle: Avoiding Chaos With The North Star
On the left side of the Triangle, there is a connection between the organization and tasks. When an organization is unclear about why it exists, what problem it is trying to solve, and what its driving values are, you see that here. In real life – in the office – this looks like chaos. Team members are unsure what they are supposed to do or why they are supposed to do it. People feel pulled in different directions.
The work of implementation leaders is to build capacity within their organization, which in turn gives space for team members to do their best work, and this brings us back to the North Star.
When you know what your North Star is (Ask us how to figure it out if you don’t already know.), you can more easily
- Get clear on high impact strategies
- Clarify goals
- Understand your org’s value
- Filter new ideas so you know what’s worth focusing on
- Make a quality plan
Building capacity requires a declaration of what ideal state looks like, and the North Star helps you see what that is. When you know this, you better see what aligns, or doesn’t, with where you want to go.
It is about identifying guardrails, getting rid of or deprioritizing work that is misaligned, and deploying implementation teams with delegated authority to uncover gaps and adaptive challenges and working through them. This work involves mitigating politics and making the tough decisions required to stay focused.
Get access to short videos and microtechniques for working optimally in high-stress professions with ACJI’s Learn@Work Suite.
With three tracks, SelfCare@Work, Innovate@Work, and Lead@Work (which includes a video episode about Developing Your Agency’s Why), there is content for all in the business of caring for others.
The Right Side Of The Triangle: Connection To The Why
On the right side of the Why Triangle graphic is the connection between the organizational why and the people within the organization. This side of the triangle should be a priority for both the implementation teams and the leadership teams. It is an opportunity to focus on the people within the organization and support them to do their best work and avoid disengagement and turnover challenges.
<< Learn more about The Why in this other blog post on ACJI.org >>
Implementation Capacity Building Definition
When ACJI talks about implementation capacity building, this is what we mean: An intentional process of enhancing an organization’s internal capabilities to support change over time.
Capacity building includes
- creating a common language and lens to support alignment
- developing people in a way that values innovation
- establishing processes and systems that support adaptation to changing demands.
- aiming to strengthen an organization’s overall competence, resilience, and ability to deliver impactful outcomes.
In essence, capacity building is a defined process for a criminal legal system organization to reach its potential success. Following the tenets of implementation science, capacity building improves time management, abilities, and motivation.
How Capacity Building Fits Into Implementation Science
Capacity building is about creating the infrastructure to be able to implement anything. Most organizations that we see operating in government systems, education systems, healthcare systems, and so on, are built to maintain status quo. They aren’t built to be agile and adapt to changing demands and circumstances. Capacity building is a way to get your organization ready to perform in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex space.
