Once you have gathered information to understand your problem and agreed a SMART aim statement for your project, you can create a driver diagram to help develop a change strategy.

A driver diagram is a visual display of what “drives” or contributes to the achievement of an improvement aim. This can also be thought of as a cause and effect diagram, mapping out how change ideas will feed into the system.

Why use Driver Diagrams?

• To map out your theory of change
• To generate change ideas linked to the issues you've identified
• To form the basis of a measurement strategy
• As a communication tool outlining in which parts of the system the team plans to test interventions to achieve to their goal.
• As a live document to plan next steps and track progress
   

How to get started with Driver Diagrams

• Make sure you have agreed a project aim statement as a project team - see project aims to find out more here. 
• Identify the high level factors you need in place to achieve your aim - these are your primary drivers.
• For each primary driver, think about the factors you need in place to achieve these - these are your secondary drivers.
• Then think about the change ideas you can test to influence, improve or embed these factors 
• It might help to use mind mapping, post-it notes or an online whiteboard to brainstorm the different factors as a team and group these into themes. 
• The number of drivers and change ideas depends on your specific aim, although keeping it simple is recommended

Other resources to support driver Diagrams

• You can create Driver Diagrams on Life QI, or by downloading our editable Driver Diagram template below
• If you haven't identified the key factors around your aim yet, look at some of the tools in step 2 of the improvement process to help you
• Driver diagrams can also help you plan your measurement strategy, by thinking about how you can measure your overall aim and different change ideas - see measurement for improvement to find out more here 
• Now you have identified your change ideas and a measurement plan, you can think about Testing and PDSA cycles