QI Learning Activity Instructions

Description

This activity involves repeated cycles of paper airplane design to teach participants about implementing the PDSA cycle. The aim is to work as a team to design a paper airplane that flies further during each attempt.

Learning Objectives

Participants will learn the importance of planning cycles of changes and building upon knowledge learned in the previous attempts by using the PDSA cycle. It will show how incremental changes that are replicated and expanded through multiple cycles will lead to improvement.

Materials

  1. For this activity, the following materials are required:
  2. Four tables or stations (e.g. room corners) labeled ‘plan’, ‘do’, ‘study’ and ‘act’
  3. Space for flying paper airplanes
  4. Materials to construct paper airplanes such as scrap paper, paper clips, tape, scissors etc.
  5. A tape measure or other measuring tool for each team (a string measured to be a meter can be used for this)

Introduction

As participants work to improve the RN, they need to be comfortable with the idea of starting out with a small-scale, pilot test of change that will be built on and scaled over time. Taking an incremental approach to improvement by implementing increasingly complex PDSA cycles will lead to a better change product because changes to the system are thoughtfully planned and assessed.

We will practice implementing the four steps of the PDSA cycle we just learned by working as teams to design paper airplanes. There are four stations around the room-one at which teams will ‘plan’ the airplane, one at which you will ‘do’ the test flight, one at which you will ‘study’ the result of the flight and one at which you ‘act’ to determine the changes you will make to the airplane design in the next round.

Activity Instructions

  1. Divide the participants into groups of 4-6 participants
  2. Explain the task is to create a paper airplane and the goal is to have the plane that will fly the farthest
  3. Teams move from station to station from ‘plan’ through to ‘act’, designing and construction a paper airplane, putting it through a test flight, evaluating the results of the flight (how far did it go?) and acting on the results to prepare for the next cycle
  4. During the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the cycle, it may be helpful for a facilitator to be stationed at the ‘Plan’ table to help participants generate ideas about changes that can be made to increase the flight distance
  5. Facilitators will act as coaches to ensure teams flow through each PDSA step appropriately
  6. Three PDSA cycles must be completed by each team and at the end of three cycles, all teams stop and re-convene as a large group to share results and debrief

Debrief

  1. Ask each team to report their longest flight and ask the winning team to walk through its airplane designs. What did they learn from each cycle? How did they change the airplane each time?
  2. Discuss in general the idea of multiple cycles of small change guided by the following questions:
  3. Did their experience in this game help them understand the approach?
  4. Do they think it is a valid approach to QI work? Why or why not?
  5. What aspects of the process did you find most helpful?
  6. How might you apply a system like this to improvement projects in the clinical setting?
  7. Ask participants if they asked for assistance from other PDSA teams during the activity. If so, what did they learn and how did it effect their airplane? Emphasize that it is important for us to work together and learn from one another within the RN to address challenges and improve quality across the network.
  8. Ask participants about improvements they have tried to make in their health facility or organization:
  9. Did they start with a small test of change?If so, did it work?
  10. How might they have used PDSA cycles even more effectively? If not, do they think using PDSA cycles would have made this effort more successful?
  11. Ask participants where we might use the PDSA cycle to improve quality within the RN