Continuous Improvement: The PDCA Cycle

From Angela Knobloch, FST Change Management & Continuous Improvement Workstream Lead

Continuous Improvement, at its most basic foundation, is about trying something, checking to see how it worked, and adjusting as needed based on feedback (the PDCA Cycle). It’s very easy to spend our energies on “planning” and “doing” and yet neglect the most important piece of “check." Check can be as simple as asking the team “How did that go?” to more formal mechanisms of testing. However, we don’t need to complicate the PDCA Cycle in order to reap tremendous transformational benefits. 

You can incorporate the PDCA Cycle into your everyday activities.

• During planning, ask how “check” will occur and when
• Identify who needs to have the feedback/output from “check” and how will it be evaluated
• Demonstrate willingness to adjust based on “check”