SCAMPER Technique is a process improvement tool that helps teams improve existing processes or create new ones. Introduced in Michael Michalko’s book
Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, the SCAMPER Technique is presented here as a supplement to the Public Health Foundation (PHF) book
Public Health Quality Improvement Encyclopedia. The tool helps a quality improvement (QI) team increase its creativity and think outside-the-box to generate many ideas for improvement. Because this technique is an idea generator, many of the ideas may turn out to be impractical or too costly. While brainstorming the ideas, just write them down without judging them; prioritization and elimination will come later in the process. The letters in the acronym SCAMPER stand for:
S – Substitute
C – Combine
A – Adapt
M – Modify
P – Put to another use
E – Eliminate
R – Reverse
Use the SCAMPER Technique after a QI team has developed the flow chart of the existing process, understands the process' baseline measures, and has developed root causes of the process’ problems or bottlenecks along with the Five S’s.1 This tool and the accompanying example were adapted for a public health audience by PHF Senior Quality Advisor John W. Moran and PHF QI expert Sonja Armbruster.
About the Public Health Quality Improvement Encyclopedia
SCAMPER Technique is one of many supplements to the 2012 Public Health Quality Improvement Encyclopedia, a practical guide to using 75 tools for quality improvement practitioners in public health organizations. The book was distributed to all state and local health departments, and may be purchased through PHF's Online Store.
1 Five S’s, Public Health Quality Improvement Encyclopedia, J. Moran and G. Duffy, Public Health Foundation, Washington, DC, 2012, pp. 33-34.