Poogi stands for the Process of On-Going Improvement. Many people think this is just another way of saying, continuous improvement, life-long learning, or other similar phrases. But there is a key difference between POOGI and those similar phrases. That’s the “P” for Process. What does it mean to have a process? We typically think of a “process” as a series of steps used to get a result. In Theory of Constraints, POOGI has a more specific meaning than is beyond my scope for today.
The internet reports that Deming said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, then you don’t know what you are doing.” I think this is statement is correct. We should be able to describe what we are doing as a process.
When a parent, school district, insurance company, or other person asks us how we will proceed with treatment, the BCBA should be able to clearly describe the step-by-step process we will use. If we can’t do that, it is reasonable to assume that we don’t know what we are doing.
Unfortunately, some BCBA’s don’t have a standard process and so the results are haphazard. Some BCBA’s can describe their process beautifully, but when you observe the actual implementation of the program, you see that those processes are not followed. I’ve seen both. Having a standard process that is used in reality is a key step in building the POOGI for any organization.
Once we have a standard process, we can fight like hell about how to improve the process. We can say, you know what, step 7 sucks. Let’s ditch it. Step 12 occurs too late in the process, let’s move it to step 4. But if you don’t have a standard process, the POOGI becomes impossible.
In my view, that is one of the hidden benefits of the new PFA (Practical Functional Assessment / IISCA) and SBT (Skills Based Treatment) developed by Greg Hanley and colleagues. Before PFA/SBT, there were clearly described processes in the research literature, but very few BCBA’s used them in practice.
The new PFA/SBT process is being used consistently by a very large number of practitioners. Now, we can get down to the POOGI of fighting over the effectiveness of different steps in the process. In the last several years I’ve been working on it, I’ve seen major shifts in many aspects of the process. That’s a great thing. That’s the POOGI.