After a UBT is launched, its leaders must help team members work together collaboratively to meet milestones and accomplish team goals.

As a team develops, its members begin to ask, "How are we going to accomplish our work?" As team members learn to work together and participate in well-led meetings, they will have more time and energy to focus on their purpose.

As the team members begin to meet and to collaborate, completing the following steps will help keep the team moving forward:

• Use the Value Compass to guide the team;
• Use the Rapid Improvement Model (RIM);  
• Measure and track performance;
• Use the LMP tools of interest-based problem solving (IBPS) and consensus decision making (CDM) as needed.

What Is the Rapid Improvement Model?

The Rapid Improvement Model is a tried-and-tested approach to improvement. It is a simple approach that anyone can use and offers the following benefits:

• Allows participants to reduce risk by starting small;
• Provides a systematic way to plan, develop, implement and sustain change;
• Allows team members to achieve big gains from small, rapid tests of change;
• Makes efficient use of time;
• Eliminates dangerous workarounds or unwritten rules;
• Assists the team in achieving the department's goals and improving its performance.

How the Rapid Improvement Model works

There are four steps to using the Rapid Improvement Model:

• Set goals
  Ask: What are we trying to accomplish? Improvement requires setting goals that are time specific, measurable and that define the group of members/patients who will be affected. Goals for improvement should be aligned with department/regional goals and the Value Compass.

• Establish measures
  Ask: How will we know that change is an improvement? This question focuses specifically on what your team will measure, how you will measure it and how you will decide whether it improves your work.

• Select changes
  Ask: What changes can we make that will result in improvement? All improvement requires making changes, but not all changes result in improvement. Organizations must identify changes that are most likely to result in improvement.

• Test change
  The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle is a quick way to test change in a real work setting – plan it, try it, observe the results and act on what is learned. PDSA is the scientific method for action-oriented learning.