The Clinical Method Applied
Chapter 15 Bedside Questions · 8 questions · about 8 minutes
Executive teams launch initiatives with a goal and a project charter instead of a written examination, diagnosis and plan; they close prematurely, write plans that cannot be falsified, go live everywhere at once, skip follow-up, and let gains drift so the same work is redone every 3 years.
The appendicitis workup: history, exam, differential, discriminating tests, written diagnosis, executable orders, titrated treatment, scheduled follow-up and maintenance, applied to the organization as patient.
Answer as your executive team would, with the evidence in hand. Each question has a factual answer in a system you already own.
Are major initiatives launched with a written examination, diagnosis and plan, or with a goal and a project charter?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
On your three largest initiatives, can the team hand you the working diagnosis in writing with the alternatives considered and rejected?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
Are plans specific, measurable, time-bound and owned? Pick one at random and test whether a colleague could execute it without the author.
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
Is the follow-up cadence written into plans at the start, or added at the end as an audit?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
Is implementation titrated, or does it go live everywhere on a date picked without clinical input?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
After your last successful improvement, was the capability chartered, staffed and funded, or did the team disband and the gain drift?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
For your last three major proposals, was the breakeven point calculated or the Ch 8 margin multiplier applied?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
Has your executive team been taught this method explicitly, or is it a random discipline some people happen to have?
Add a note: where is the evidence, or who owns it?
A reflection tool from the book, not a validated diagnostic test or benchmark. Your answers and notes stay in this browser unless you choose to send them. Please don't enter patient information.
A project charter describes what will be done. It rarely states what is believed to be wrong.
The Diagnostician, Chapter 15