What Is PDCA? Understanding the Plan-Do-Check-Act Method

In any industry, your business regularly needs to improve if you want it to succeed.

When change is required at your organisation, acting on a plan without evaluating the progress can be harmful to a business. The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (PDCA) can be beneficial to facilitate change.

PDCA is a continual cycle of improvement of people, products, services, and business processes. It consists of four steps.

1. Plan
2. Do
3. Check
4. Act

Each step sets you up for success in the next stage.

Ask the following questions:

• What problem do you need to solve?
• What resources will you need to fix the issue?
• What resources do you already possess?
• How can you best solve the problem with your available resources?
• What does success look like?

With your plan sorted out, it's time to focus on executing your ideas. Of course, issues will arise even if you have a solid plan, so be willing to adjust as you go.

Effective communication with your team members will limit the number of problems as everyone will have a clear idea of their responsibilities.

• How did your plan work in the controlled environment?
• Did you achieve your goals?
• Identify the flaws in the process and correct them. 

If you met your goals during the Check phase, you could apply your initial plan.

This becomes the best practice for this part of your organisation. It becomes the starting point for your next change implementation.

• Ensure that upper management agrees with the changes.
• Never stop improving. ThePDCA is a repeat cycle, making improvements with each revolution.
• Once you've implemented a policy change, do so for the entire organisation.