Every improvement project at some point refers to the Shewhart cycle: Plan, Do, Check, Act. I have used it extensively myself, but never been fully comfortable with the language of the last two points in the cycle, and the actions that the language implies.
Plan, Do, Check, Act.
Plan. Planning is essential, it is a fundamentally important part of any project, no matter how big, or small. If nothing else, a plan articulates the points of departure as the journey progresses.
Do. Again, doing is essential, without the doing, the planning is just a dream, someone’s illusion of activity.
Check. This is the point where I start to have problems. The word has two unfortunate connotations. The first is to ‘Stop’, not a good idea in a continuous improvement process. The second, its use in the context of checking someone’s ‘homework’, have they done what they said they would do, by the time agreed? Again, this is necessary, but in my experience in a supposedly collaborative group, when the ‘leader’ is doing the checking, the dog gets busy with the homework. It is better for those in the group to self-manage their commitments to each other and let the group dynamics take care of the laggards. It is the leader’s job to encourage the evolution of the ‘group culture’ that enables this to happen. Therefore, I will propose we replace ‘Check’ with ‘Review’. When we review progress in a regular meeting, or by whichever method is used, the review will ensure that the work is done as agreed. However, review has a wider meaning which makes it way more valuable. It implies that not only does the group review the work to date, and review the reasons for variations, it encourages a wider review of the context and causes of those unexpected outcomes, and variations from the planning hypothesis.
Act. The final step. Act can sometimes feel disconnected from the previous step of Check. It is even more distant if we alter the naming of the previous step to ‘Review’. I would therefore propose we change the ‘Act’ to ‘Adjust’. This change implies that based on the outcomes of the ‘review’ process, we have now ‘Adjusted’ our actions appropriately. We can then repeat the process, starting again at plan, as we now have a more robust set of data to work with as we evolve more informed hypotheses to test.
Plan, Do, Review, Adjust.
Replace the PDCA cycle with the PDRA cycle?
Perhaps a bit presumptuous of me to suggest such heresy, but working with those SME’s that make up the bulk of my client base, it makes sense both to me, and more importantly, to them.
It is a little thing, just two words, but little things are cumulative, and do eventually can make a significant contribution.
Appreciated – the perspective helps
Bruce, I am very glad that the idea was of value to you.
Calling out such an iconic idea as PDCA seemed somewhat presumptuous of me, and I did expect negative responses, so far not forthcoming.