Exercise

Open School

Practice Planning an Improvement Project

Instructions

 Select an area for improvement in your personal life. Choose something small that you
could improve over several weeks.

 Fill out the Personal Improvement Project Worksheet below.

 Ask a colleague to review your work, and refine your project plan based on the peer feedback.

 Discuss what you learned in this exercise.

Personal Improvement Project Worksheet

1. Aim: What are your aims?

o Develop your aim(s) with a general aim statement and specific goals. Please make
sure that your aim(s) are consistent with your goals.

2. Measures: What measures will you track?

o Given the above aim(s), what measures will you use to track progress? List the key
process and outcome measures that are pertinent to all the goals in your aim.

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 3. Changes: What changes will you focus on to reach your aims in the next three weeks?

Questions for Reviewer(s)

1. Does it seem possible for the project to be completed within several weeks?
2. How clear and complete is the aim statement?
3. Is there a complete family of measures?
o Are the measures clearly related to the project goals?

4. Are the initial change ideas clear and well-defined?

Discussion Questions

1. How did you select your aim, measures, and changes?

2. What is your level of confidence you will be able to make this change?
3. How do you think having this written plan will help you?
4. What did you learn during this activity?

IHI Open School • Practice Planning an Improvement Project • Exercise 2