Look inside and outside. A design group should be given overall responsibility to develop new designs recommendations for the school. The design groups should include representatives from both inside and outside the school. "Inside" includes students, teachers, administrators, and other staff. "Outside" includes parents, business, organized labor, other schools (K-12 and postsecondary), and other dimensions of the broader community (and beyond the local geographic area). Ideally, the design group should be about one-half from inside and one-half from outside the school. Selecting the design group is one of the most important decisions in the design process.

Involve from the beginning. The design group should be involved as soon as possible after the design process is initiated (usually by the school administrator). They should have the opportunity to review and revise the design process to best meet the needs of the school.

Use a clear and powerful process. The design-down process described earlier is very straightforward and easy to understand. It is effective at getting the design group to face the need to change and take ownership for recommended changes. The initial design-down orientation of the process works to get the most fundamental questions addressed first and then, in a linear fashion, building alignment and coherence as the group moves down to other design elements. However, there is also the need to check back up the design process to see that all of the recommendations are mutually reinforcing; at times this may mean further elaborating or even changing the nature of prior recommendations as one sees the consequences of and gains insights from working on later design elements. In the end, the process is a combination of designing-down and checking-up with the aim of developing close alignment of the attributes recommended for all design elements of the school.

Act as a role-model. The leaders of the design process must model the importance of involvement of stakeholders and the necessity to make significant changes as they are warranted. They must be willing to encourage change and show that they will move assertively to implement recommended changes.

Rely on more than one way. The process must be open to different ways of involving stakeholders, depending on their interest, areas of expertise and concern, and available time. Ways of gaining input from stakeholders include design group membership, one-on-one interviews, written surveys, small group interviews, web pages, and open forums.

Bring the rest along. While a small group may form the design group, it is essential to keep the larger staff and community informed and aware of ways to communicate their questions and views. Specific strategies need to be put in place for broad, two-way communication among all stakeholder groups. Without this process well worked out and implemented, the design group can become isolated and distanced from the stakeholders in a school.

Think comprehensively and long-term. Major changes take several years to implement and must be addressed on several fronts. Effective implementation is usually based on a five- or seven-year plan and has dimensions focusing on staff development, curriculum revision, partnership recruiting, technology planning, and facilities renovation.