The Six Core Principles of Improvement : Using Improvement Science to Accelerate Learning and Address Problems of Practice.

Carnegie advocates for the use of improvement science to accelerate how a field learns to improve. Improvement science deploys rapid tests of change to guide the development, revision and continued fine-tuning of new tools, processes, work roles and relationships.
Improvement science is explicitly designed to accelerate learning-by-doing. It's a more user-centered and problem-centered approached to improving teaching and learning.
As the improvement process advances, previously invisible problems often emerge and improvement activities may need to tack in new directions. The objective here is quite different from the traditional pilot program that seeks to offer a proof of concept. Improvement research, in contrast, is a focused learning journey. The overall goal is to develop the necessary know-how for a reform idea ultimately to spread faster and more effectively. Since improvement research is an iterative process often extending over considerable periods of time, it is also referred to as continuous improvement.