IHI Quality Improvement Games: Learn How to Use PDSA Cycles by Spinning Coins

Niñon Lewis, MS, Executive Director, IHI

You may have thought your coin spinning days ended in grade school, but it turns out the activity can help you learn about theories, predictions, and PDSA cycles.

In the first video in this activity, Niñon Lewis explains what participants will do in the game and what they’ll need to play. In the second, she talks with Rebecca Steinfield, IHI Improvement Advisor, about some of the key learnings from the game. You can show these videos in a group setting to help you facilitate this activity or watch them by yourself ahead of time.

Watch the debrief, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgYf_N3GvUM

[MUSIC]

The coin spinning game is a way to learn
one of the most essential skills in

quality improvement, the PDSA cycle,
plan, do, study, and act.

My colleague, Dave Williams,
had the idea for this game, and

we flushed out the idea and
started using it with teams.

It's a really fun and very quick way to
get some real experience with PDSA cycles.

Today, our learning objectives for
this exercise are two,.

1, understand rapid-cycle PDSA testing.

2, understand how theory and
prediction help you learning.

3, see how to collect real time data for
measurement.

And 4, appreciate the opportunity
to learn together.

The materials for this game that you'll
need are four coins of different sizes and

weights.

In the US we use a quarter, a dime,

a nickle and a penny,
use whatever works for you.

You'll also need a time piece
able to capture minutes and

seconds at each table, a smartphone works
well for a time piece for this game.

You'll also need a time keeper.

You should also have a worksheet
called the PDSA tracker with you.

You'll see several questions that will
prompt you to be thoughtful about

the ideas you wanna test.

This game works best in groups of
about three to five, so team up and

make sure you have the materials with you.

The object of the game is to spin
that coin as long as you can.

You can use and test any of
the four coins, any technique and

any surface,
however you define what a surface is.

The game is going to take roughly 25
minutes, 15 minutes for spinning and

10 minutes to debrief what you've learned.

You wanna run as many tests as
you can in these 15 minutes.

However, you wanna be
intentional in your testing.

That means consider what you believe
may support the longest coin spins.

Write your change idea down in
the plan section of your PDSA tracker,

along with what questions you're
trying to answer with this test.

Then make a prediction of
the time you expect to achieve.

Once the plan section is complete,
do the test, spin the coin.

Remember, the starting point is
when the coin starts spinning, and

it stops when the coin comes to a natural
stopping point fully on your surface.

During the test, capture observations in
the do section of the PDSA tracker form.

After the completion of your test,

document the time in the run chart
included in your tracker and test again.

You might think documentation is gonna
take you a long time, but trust us,

the more tests you run, the faster
you'll get at planning your tests.

Are you ready, let's do this.

[MUSIC]