Driver Diagram
What is it?
A driver diagram is a way of visualising the ‘drivers’ or forces behind what is going to make an improvement. It is the visual representation of the theory of change - what needs to be improved in order to reach your aim.
A driver diagram is a one-page summary of your improvement strategy.
Click on diagrams to enlarge
Why use it?
A driver diagram can show you the parts of the system that need to change in order to reach your goal. It can be used to see how change ideas link into the improvement aim and can also be used to prioritise ideas. It helps to show which parts of the system need changing according to the whole team, not just one person. A driver diagram helps to provide some order and themes to the ideas that you want to test.
It helps to understand the current system, the theory for change and to develop change ideas.
How to use it?
There are a number of ways of getting started with a driver diagram. It works best as a group exercise with people who use the system and personally experience the element you are trying to improve.
Have a look at the tips on the NES website for more information as well as the slides to see an example of a driver diagram.
Start with your aim written on one side of the page. Think about specific things you could do to achieve this aim (e.g. ‘Have a designated whole team coffee break once a week’ is a change idea, ‘improve work culture’ isn’t).
It can be useful to write these ideas on post-it notes as you want to be flexible with them later.
As you create change ideas, put them on the opposite side to the paper as the aim.
Be mindful to include change ideas and not tasks e.g. ‘test out use of text messages for appointment reminders’ is a change idea. ‘Train staff to use text messaging’ is a task. As a general rule, you should be able to put ‘to test’ in front of a change idea.
Once you have a few change ideas, look over them all and see if you can find any themes. These are broader and less specific (e.g. culture, equipment, communication). Group your change ideas together with these headings. These are your primary drivers.
Some of your primary drivers may be ‘big’ concepts and could be broken down further. For example, if thinking about ‘communication’ as a primary driver, this could be broken down into internal communication and external communication.
As you go along, you might come up with new change ideas. Make sure you add them to your page.
Leave the driver diagram a bit ‘scruffy’ to start with to allow changes to be made. Your team are unlikely to want to edit a very neat, ‘final’ looking diagram.
Click here for an example of how to create a driver diagram.
More information
Quality Improvement Zone - NES - for further information and templates
IHI - for further information and examples
Kent Community Health Trust - for an easy to edit template (the Word document will need to be downloaded to edit)