The PDCA cycle originated in the early 20th century and is a foundation for driving continual improvement in an organisation.

We encourage our clients that, if they remember nothing else in the work we do with them, remember the 'Plan Do Check Act' philosophy and through embedding this approach, your business will head in the direction that you want it to. This demands a systematic approach to how you run your business to continually improve it.

I will try to explain the steps further and how effectively following them will help your business flourish.

⇒   Plan:

Planning is determining what needs to be done to achieve successful outcomes. At this stage you need to take into account the issues that you face and the parties who have an interest in what you are doing. The reason for their interest may be positive or negative but understanding these and their requirements is important as they have a big bearing on how successful you will be.

At this stage you will also need to consider your objectives and how you will measure your success against them.

Finally you will need to consider what resources you will need as having the right people with the right tools in the right places at the right time will be key to achieving success.

⇒   Do:

This is the part of the cycle that most companies are good at – making what they make or providing their service and so you won’t dwell on that here.

⇒   Check: 

This is one area that a significant number of organisations struggle with. Having a systematic approach to reviewing your business can add real value in checking things that are often presumed to be working well.

Examples of checking can be in the form of internal audits of processes, which ISO standards insist on. Our experience is that clients often find these challenging to fit in due to resources being more valuable in other parts of the business, but we can help them manage this activity.

Other examples are review meetings with the teams and even reviewing progress against the objectives or targets you have set.

⇒   Act: 

So, you’ve reviewed the performance of your organisation – now it’s time to take what you’ve learned and make improvements.

Making improvements will not only keep you ahead of the competition but it will also help you improve your performance in reducing waste and inefficiencies across the business.

When you have made those changes you will need to decide on a suitable interval before you evaluate whether the action that you took brought about the result that you hoped for.

All of these are part of an ongoing cycle and by working your way around the cycle systematically and continually you will make significant positive changes in your business.








Contact us today:
Glade Consulting Services | info@gladecs.co.uk

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