Working as a team to create drivers

Working as a team by setting clear goals, brainstorming and evaluating

Using a driver diagram as your planning tool is a great way to foster collaboration and to ensure that all of the team are on the same page.

To help with the process, here are some steps that you need to take to create a collaborative driver diagram:

Step 1: Gather your people

This could be a team member, a neutral colleague who can listen fairly, or a service user.

A good facilitator should try and encourage rational debate, and allow otherwise overruled opinions to have a voice. This will aid the driver diagram's multilateral way of thinking, and will also help to generate new and better ideas.

Additionally, the facilitator can act as time keeper.

Step 2: Clear up your goal

The most crucial step to making sure that all team members understand the overall aim, and can therefore contribute relevant drivers, is solidifying the goal.

Having a vague aim such as, "We want to make patients' food more nutritious", or a simple negative statement such as "We have received an unusual number of patient complaints about food" won't lead to collaborative thinking as there is too much ambiguity for everyone to be on the same page.

Turning your aim into a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) target is the best way to ensure comprehension. For instance, "We will increase the number of fruits and vegetables included in patients' meals by 30% by the end of this year."

Step 3: Set up the project in LifeQI

If you have access to a large screen or projector, kick start the project by creating it in the LifeQI system as a team.

Write down your SMART aim in the 'Aim' field on the project's 'General' page and invite the team members.

Step 4: Brainstorm

On paper or a board, consider all of the different factors that affect the goal. Don't worry about what category to put the drivers into at this point (primary or secondary) - it's more important to gather people's ideas.

The facilitator can potentially play devil's advocate to stir debate and creativity.

Step 5: Separate and coordinate the ideas into different drivers

Start sorting the drivers and post them onto the driver diagram in LifeQI. It will be easier than using a white board or paper - if you change your mind about a driver or want to edit it, it's much easier to alter on the system.

Drivers that include means of measuring your project can be written on the Measures page. More specific ideas that don't fit in amongst the secondary drivers are most likely change ideas, so add them to LifeQI's Change Ideas page.

Step 6: Evaluate and reconvene later

Very often people come up with more ideas and thoughts after a team meeting when they've had space to think.

Whilst you can add these new thoughts easily to the driver diagram in the LifeQI system link to Driver Diagram learning page, it's worth rearranging another meeting to discuss any changes.

It will also give a chance for quieter voices to have their say.