School leadership is fast-paced, complex and constantly evolving, and many of the skills we rely on are learned through experience rather than formal training.
When I stepped into a senior leadership role, I found myself juggling multiple strategic initiatives, managing teams and driving change. The challenge wasn’t just keeping track of tasks but ensuring that projects were delivered effectively, on time and with demonstrable impact.
That’s when I realised something: much of what I was doing was project management, but I had no formal grounding in it. I would watch videos online and read snippets of articles, but there was a language and methodology that was alien to me. So I decided to delve a little deeper.
Why project management?
Like many school leaders, I had engaged with concepts like change management during my leadership training. For me it was when taking the National Professional Qualification for senior leadership.
However, I wanted something more structured that would give me ideas for practical tools that would help me to manage my workload, understand how best to streamline processes and how to enhance collaboration across teams.
I decided to invest in an online, flexible professional certification in project management.
I found one that was easily affordable, and because it was online I could access it when I wanted and for the length of time that suited me. This meant I could fit it around my existing commitments.
Since doing this I have seen a clear impact on my own leadership, which is now far more structured: I am focusing on high-impact tasks, rather than constantly firefighting, and school initiatives have clearer objectives, better resource allocation and improved execution and reflection.
These are the tools that transformed my leadership.
1. Prioritisation and workflow management
Like for most school leaders, my to-do list was endless and urgent tasks often pushed important strategic work to the side.
But learning how to structure my workflow, breaking projects down into manageable steps and tracking progress, made a significant difference. Simple visual tools, such as , helped me to stay focused and ensured that key initiatives didn’t get lost in the day-to-day demands of school life.
My school recently migrated its policies on to a new online platform, which was a muti-faceted process with different approval and read teams reviewing several documents at once. My role was to oversee this process; something that would have felt a lot harder without my project management skills and knowledge of tools to help manage this.
2. Linking projects to school improvement
A pivotal moment came when I started integrating these techniques with existing documents like our school improvement plan.
Mapping out key milestones and dependencies helped to clarify priorities, making it easier to communicate expectations and track progress.
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Here tools like , which offer actionable timelines that can be developed in real time, are invaluable.
Being able to effectively schedule consultation, drafting, implementation and review periods for changes to our policies and procedures has been a huge help.
3. Collaboration and accountability
In a busy school environment, responsibilities can sometimes feel unclear.
However, understanding the need for structured planning approaches and setting out clearly defined roles within projects has helped to improve efficiency across teams because all staff clearly understand their roles, reducing duplication of effort and improving communication.
A responsibility assignment matrix is quick to set up and ensures clarity in terms of accountability and communication, as well as encouraging stakeholder engagement.
Any school improvement involves and affects people at different levels, so being able to visualise this and ensure that everyone is communicated with effectively is key.
Why project management matters
Ultimately, while education and business have different goals, school leadership often mirrors project management: balancing priorities, coordinating teams and driving meaningful change.
Yet many school leaders tackle these challenges without the structured tools that other industries rely on.
Learning project management isn’t about making schools more corporate; it’s about working smarter, bringing clarity to complex initiatives, improving collaboration and ensuring that ideas turn into impact.
James Kemp is deputy head of school and designated 51ºÚÁÏ lead at Mooltripakdee International School in Thailand
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