Public Health and QI Toolbox

Affinity diagram: Brainstorm and organize ideas by commonalities

Aim statement: Describe expected accomplishments in a written, measurable, and time-specific way

Brainstorming: Creatively and effectively generate a high volume of ideas, without judgment

Fishbone diagram: Narrow down root causes to problems (also called cause and effect diagram)

Charter for QI projects: Help your team maintain its goals, scope, and deliverables during the course of a QI project

Check sheet: Record and compile data from archives or observations, to detect trends or patterns

Control chart: Monitor, control, and improve process performance over time by studying variation and its source

Flowchart: Identify the steps and sequence of events in a process, to minimize duplication, address problem areas, and standardize work

Force field analysis: Investigate the balance of power in resolving an issue by pitting a situation's pros and cons against each other

Gantt chart: Schedule a project's activities to show the most efficient way of organizing/sequencing activities, to maximize output in the shortest reasonable time

Interrelationship digraph: Identify and analyze relationships among critical factors that impact an issue, to hone in on key drivers and outcomes

Kaizen: Examine wait time, duplicative work, and other waste with this facilitated group effort; you can also map current process and desired future process, and create plans to move from one to the other

Lean: Identify and eliminate waste and standardize work processes with this customer-focused process improvement methodology

Logic model: Illustrate how a project, program, or policy is understood and intended to produce particular results (also called Line of Sight Model)

Multivoting: Come to a consensus based on the relative importance of issues or solutions (also called nominal group technique)

Objectives: Ensure objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, and Timely (SMART); and are tied to goals and benchmarks

Pareto chart: Shows relative frequency or size of problems, to find those that offer the greatest potential for improvement

PDSA: Plan-do-study-act: Improve process or carry out change with four-stage, iterative model (Also called rapid cycle improvement or plan-do-check-act [PDCA])

Prioritization matrix: Systematically compare choices by selecting, weighing, and applying criteria, to ultimately narrow choices

QI plans for internal organizational use: A quality improvement plan describes how a health department will manage, deploy, and review quality.

Quality planning: Design a process that can meet established goals under operating conditions

Radar chart: Shows the gap between current and optimal performance for multiple factors related to performance

Run chart: Tracks data over time to identify trends or patterns

Scatter plot: Identifies the possible relationship between changes observed in two different sets of variables

Storyboard: Highlight and present key aspects of a quality improvement effort by documenting the project from beginning to end

Swim lane map: Map out processes, decisions, and loops to delineate who's responsible for parts of a processes, and where redundancies occur (also called Process Flow Diagram)

Tree diagram: Link goals and subgoals to activities

Affinity diagram: Brainstorm and organize ideas by commonalities

Brainstorming: Creatively and effectively generate a high volume of ideas, without judgment

Considerations for shared governance structures (PDF): Explore or plan changes to governance or administration with these planning and communications tools

Fishbone diagram: Narrow down root causes to problems (also called cause and effect diagram)

Focused conversation: Enable individuals and groups to process their thoughts in an orderly manner

Interrelationship digraph: Identify and analyze relationships among critical factors that impact an issue, to hone in on key drivers and outcomes

Objectives: Ensure objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, and Timely (SMART); and are tied to goals and benchmarks

Prioritization matrix: Systematically compare choices by selecting, weighing, and applying criteria, to ultimately narrow choices

Quality planning: Design a process that can meet established goals under operating conditions

Social/organizational network analysis: Assess the informal staff relationships in an organization, to see how work truly happens and to build stronger teams using pre-existing relationships

SWOT diagram (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats): Analyze internal and external factors that might contribute to success, or negatively impact work

Critical to quality tree (CTQ tree): The CTQ tree helps translate broad customer needs and requirements into specific, measureable performance requirements.

Customer focus: Having a customer focus encompasses the ways in which a public health agency or program listens to the voice of its customers, builds customer relationships, determines customers' level of satisfaction, and uses customer information and feedback to identify and act on opportunities for improvement.

Customer identification: Determine the customer groups associated with products and services, and identify customer needs and measures.

Kano model: The Kano model helps prioritize customer needs and requirements by grouping them into three categories: Expected/Must Haves, Nice to Have/Normal, and Exciters/Delighters.

Project management tools: Download templates for your team to use during your project.

Aim statement: Describe expected accomplishments in a written, measurable, and time-specific way

Charter for QI projects: Help your team maintain its goals, scope, and deliverables during the course of a QI project

Flowchart: Identify the steps and sequence of events in a process, to minimize duplication, address problem areas, and standardize work

Gantt chart: Schedule a project's activities to show the most efficient way of organizing/sequencing activities, to maximize output in the shortest reasonable time

Objectives: Ensure objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, and Timely (SMART); and are tied to goals and benchmarks

SWOT diagram (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats): Analyze internal and external factors that might contribute to success, or negatively impact work

Tree diagram: Link goals and subgoals to activities

Affinity diagram: Brainstorm and organize ideas by commonalities

Brainstorming: Creatively and effectively generate a high volume of ideas, without judgment

Community engagement knowledge, skills, and abilities assessment for public health professionals: This assessment supports public health professionals to advance health equity by understanding key competencies for authentic engagement.

Focused conversation: Enable individuals and groups to process their thoughts in an orderly manner

Multivoting: Come to a consensus based on the relative importance of issues or solutions (also called Nominal Group Technique)

Principles of authentic community engagement: Shift consideration of who is involved, how they work together, and how progress happens.

Social/organizational network analysis: Assess the informal staff relationships in an organization, to see how work truly happens and to build stronger teams using pre-existing relationships

SWOT diagram (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats): Analyze internal and external factors that might contribute to success, or negatively impact work

Health Equity Resource Library: Use these tools, templates, and resources to build your public health department's health equity capacity. The library is designed to allow local health departments to identify resources to best meet their needs from among a wide range of materials. MDH staff have included a summary for each resource, which includes considerations for use.

• Action plan
• Affinity diagram
• Aim statement
• Authentic community engagement
• Brainstorming
• Charter for QI projects
• Check sheet
• Community engagement knowledge, skills, and abilities assessment
• Considerations for shared governance structure (PDF)
• Control chart
• Cross-jurisdictional service sharing (PDF)
• Critical to quality tree
• CTQ tree
• Customer focus
• Customer identification
• Fishbone diagram
• Flowchart
• Focused conversation
• Force field analysis
• Gantt chart
• Governance: Sharing services (PDF)
• Health Equity Resource Library
• Interrelationship digraph
• Kaizen
• Kano model
• Knowledge, skills, and abilities assessment for community engagement
• KSA assessment for community engagement
• Lean
• Line of sight model
• Logic model
• Managing projects
• Multivoting
• Network analysis
• Nominal group technique
• Objectives
• Organizational network analysis
• Pareto chart
• PDCA
• PDSA
• Plan-do-check-act
• Plan-do-study-act
• Principles of authentic community engagement
• Prioritization matrix
• Project management tools
• QI plans for internal organization use
• QI storyboard
• Quality planning
• Radar chart
• Resource Library for Health Equity
• Run chart
• Scatter plot
• Sharing services across jurisdictions (PDF)
• SMART objectives
• Social network analysis
• Storyboard
• Strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats
• Swim lane map
• SWOT diagram
• Tools for project management
• Tree diagram