Your chance to apply the tool

Ask team members to brainstorm issues under each category. All of the headings are interrelated so don’t worry too much about where you capture comments. The summary grid will allow you to agree and extract the key points.

The grid below can be used by your team to explore your collective understanding of your project area. Some example questions are given.

System, context & environment• What services currently exist?• How do they interact to create a system? • Who are the local stakeholders? • Where are the bottlenecks? What might get in

the way?• Where is care below expectations ?• What are the socio-economic factors affecting

outcomes?

Psychology, behaviour, beliefs• What will different stakeholders want to

achieve in this area?• Who has power and influence and are they

interested in this topic?• What motivates patient, public and staff

behaviour? How do people behave?• What resistance or support for change is

likely?

Theory of Knowledge• What national evidence exists? What do we

think works, and why?• What ideas for change exist locally and what

are the theories behind them? • What do you think is causing the local

problems?• What untested assumptions do you have

about how / why things currently work? • Why does this matter?

Understanding Variation • Do different groups (e.g. ethnic groups,

diagnostic groups) have different needs? • Are services provided or used differently by

locality or groups? • What do we know about trends in outcomes or

processes over time? • Do we understand why things are different?• What data / measures do we have and what

do they tell us?

System, context, environment

What do you know about the system?

People, behaviours, beliefs

What do we know about how people behave and why? What do different people want?

Variation and difference

What data do we have? What patterns does it show? How do we explain them?

Theory of knowledge

What assumptions or hypotheses do we have?

Summary Sheet

Project area: _____________________

System, context, environment Psychology: people, behaviour, beliefs

Theory of Knowledge Understanding Variation

Summary Sheet: actions

Project area: _____________________

System, context, environment Psychology: people, behaviour, beliefs

Theory of Knowledge Understanding Variation