All the continuous improvement people will enjoy the last tier of the pyramid, which is only one block and it’s called Plussing. Did it just work out that way, as the last block left? How did Plussing end up the king of the mountain? -Joe 
Lou Prosperi: Well, I think there’re two answers there. The first is it really is Walt Disney’s cardinal rule. He was all about Plussing. He was always constantly asking his people to do things better. Some classic examples of this in animation were adding sounds to animation, adding color to animation. The development of the multi-plane camera that he did that added to animation. He was constantly looking for ways to improve what he did and plus what he did, and he encouraged his people to do that, and when they moved into theme parks, that tradition carried on, and so the Imagineers are constantly looking for how do they things better? The first answer, it ended up on the top because it is really one of just Walt Disney’s Imagineering primary rules but it goes back to their founder Walt Disney.
The second is as I identified these and I grouped them, and a couple of them moved here and there as I went through these, some of my formative and my own concept development if you will, I realized I had three visual communications ones that we talked about earlier. I identified my foundations and really there was no place else for Plussing to go. I don’t want to say it was leftover. It was clearly important, but it really is by itself, it stands alone, and it’s the king of the mountain for a reason.
The other interesting thing that I discovered while writing the book, I hadn’t really planned it this way, but when I went to write about Plussing, I realized that the other 14 principles really are ways to plus your experience. If you design something or working on something, you can go back to these other 14 ideas and say, hey am I really focusing on my story? How could I focus on my story more to make it better? Or how can I communicate my message more readable, or can I use the illusion of size a little differently, or how can I make them more memorable?
All these other principles really are ways to plus what you’re doing. I guess there are a couple different reasons that it ended up on the top, and again, it is really a central idea. What’s interesting is it’s not unique to Disney. Deming was very into continuous improvement. On the sports side, Coach John Wooden was very much about continuous improvement.
About Lou Prosperi: . Lou wrote the first book in the Imagineering Toolbox Series called The Imagineering Pyramid: Using Disney Theme Park Design Principles to Develop and Promote Your Creative Ideas. When not visiting Disney parks, Lou is a manager, technical writer, instructional designer and former game designer. Lou’s book outlines 15 practices and principles that will enable you to make your project a Disney production.
P.S. Lou is the Business901 Podcast guest next week