Managers who initially resisted started noticing how much smoother collaboration became, and employees realized that Agile wasn’t just a theoretical concept—it actually made their work easier. As with every iterative process, it allows teams to explore different solutions, gather feedback, and make more informed decisions as they develop the product. It’s especially valuable in hardware design, as well as software development when exploring new features or designs. The check phase is one of the most important stages of the PDCA cycle. Here, detailed audits of the plan’s execution and results are conducted to determine if the initial plan was successful.
Lean Development with Plan-Do-Check-Act Iterative Process
At this stage, you will apply everything that has been considered during the previous stage. IMD complies with applicable laws and regulations, including with respect to international sanctions that may be imposed on individuals and countries. This policy applies to all applications for IMD programs from individuals or organizations, and any commercial or non-commercial partnerships. This helps executives allocate resources effectively and adapt quickly to changing viewer preferences. The company’s automated systems now handle everything from inventory management to package sorting – tasks that once required extensive manual labor.
The PDCA Cycle: A Practical Approach to Problem-Solving
Many of 3M’s most successful products – including the Post-it Note – originated from this policy. Companies like 3M demonstrate how structured innovation frameworks drive success. Its “15% time” gives employees the freedom to spend up to 15% of their paid working hours on passion projects of their choice – even if those projects fall outside their immediate job responsibilities.
As small wins (L2) gain traction and cross-team collaboration strengthens (L3), organizations reach a turning point. This is where transformation shifts from internal process improvements to rethinking how the business creates value. But reaching this stage isn’t automatic—it requires visionary leadership, willingness to experiment, and strategic alignment across teams. These tools provided real-time visibility into progress, helped teams track work as it moved through different stages, and ensured alignment on priorities. Over time, the organization saw a shift from isolated wins to system-wide improvements—customer engagement improved, and product delivery became more seamless. The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle is an iterative and repetitive four-stage approach used in business process management for continuously improving processes, products, and services.
Why you must continuously evaluate and improve business processes
The focus is on functionality rather which of the following is iterative four stage approach for continually improving the process than perfection since this is just the first in multiple iterations. The outcome should be a working version that you can test in the next phase rather than the finished product. You’re most likely to encounter it in software development and product design. This approach helps teams stay flexible, fix issues early, and make sure the end result meets real needs. The “act” stage, also called the “adjust” stage, is where the process is actually improved.
If the pilot project does not produce the desired results, then the team reverts back to step one to reassess the plan. If the results were as expected, the team can progress to step four. Even if your change was a smashing success, you’ll need to go through the cycle again with another proposed change later. And if you got poor or mixed results, use what you learned to go back to the drawing board and start again.
If the PDCA cycle is determined to be a success, the team can proceed to implement and adopt the initial plan. The improved product or process now becomes the new standard baseline. Once a plan has been established, the team can decide to take relevant actions to achieve the goals set out in the plan.
The four steps can be repeated over and over as part of a never-ending cycle of continual learning and improvement. If you’re using Lean methodology to get the most out of your iterative processes, you need to get familiar with the PDCA cycle. Go through the steps each time you need to make an improvement to your process, and your team will get better and better over time. In the end, you’ll produce better work faster and with fewer resources, which eliminates waste and gets your customers exactly what they’re looking for. Successful companies develop balanced innovation portfolios that include various approaches.
Step 1: Identify the iterative, four-stage approach
Transformation isn’t just about individuals changing—it’s about ensuring alignment across teams, leadership reinforcement, and a cultural shift toward collaboration. Without this reinforcement, progress is fragile, and teams may revert to old ways of working. This involves a physical model or software prototype that’s created quickly, tested, and refined. The goal is to test and improve the concept before fully committing to large-scale production or development.
Step 2. DO
- Instead of waiting until the end of a project to release a full product, teams can deliver a basic but usable version early (like an MVP).
- The iterative process of the PDCA cycle enables ideas to be continuously tested and promotes a continuous improvement and continuous learning culture.
- Many of 3M’s most successful products – including the Post-it Note – originated from this policy.
- Fixing problems early, reducing waste, and focusing only on what works saves money.
- For any other situation where you need to improve a process, product, or service, and you have the time to test your various solutions properly — then this could be the perfect match.
- Deming is widely considered to be the father of modern quality control.
The checking phase also helps team members identify problematic elements of the current process, enabling them to take the necessary corrective actions. Developed in 1950, the PDCA cycle was created by an American engineer, statistician, and management consultant, Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Deming is widely considered to be the father of modern quality control. He created the cycle as part of his quest to identify the factors that caused products and services to fail to meet customers’ expectations.
- Transformation isn’t just about individuals changing—it’s about ensuring alignment across teams, leadership reinforcement, and a cultural shift toward collaboration.
- Teams working iteratively also have to cope with vague timelines.
- It offers substantial first-mover advantages but carries higher risks due to technological uncertainty and market adoption challenges.
Implementing the PDCA Cycle: Best Practices to Consider
It will allow you to collect enough information before you decide to proceed. Smartphones are an example of radical innovation that created new opportunities across multiple industries. This innovation type typically emerges from extensive research and development efforts. It offers substantial first-mover advantages but carries higher risks due to technological uncertainty and market adoption challenges. Transformation without strategic direction is just change for the sake of change. The real goal is business reinvention—creating an organization that is not just optimized for today, but built for the future.
It is an essential part of the Lean manufacturing philosophy and a key prerequisite for continuous improvement of people and processes. Edwards Deming which is an iterative four-step (Plan-Do-Check-Act) management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products. The different types of innovation – disruptive, incremental, radical, and sustaining – are powerful tools for addressing unique business challenges. Each approach offers distinct advantages, from creating entirely new markets to optimizing existing products to better meet customer needs.
He believes every message should express the fundamental values of a brand, and if delivered positively, it can change the course of its existence. Finally, keep in mind that the PDCA model requires a certain amount of time, and it may not be appropriate for solving urgent issues. If everything seems perfect and your team managed to achieve the original goals, then you can proceed and apply your initial plan. For example, imagine that you have plenty of customer complaints about the slow response rate of your support team.
Then you will probably need to improve the way your team works to keep customers satisfied. Nawras Skhmot, is a Norwegian civil engineer and entrepreneur with an educational background from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and UC Berkeley. A/B testing involves testing two variations (A and B) of a product or digital feature with different groups of users. One group interacts with version A, and the other group interacts with version B.
But you’ve noticed your business has suddenly started receiving bad reviews because the quality has dipped. You need to improve things to keep your customers happy, so you try a new producer for some time for some of your customers and see what this small group of people think. The results come back positive, so you decide to roll out this new supplier for all of your boxes. Instead, you need to choose small improvements that you can test out in controlled ways so that you don’t break your entire process.
You can also work on multiple elements of your project at the same time since each piece isn’t dependent on the piece before it, which shortens your timeline. PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is a problem-solving iterative method for improving processes and products continuously. Let’s discover each stage of the PDCA cycle and the benefits it will bring to your processes. Another example of how business innovation strengthens decision-making comes from OCP Group. A common challenge at this stage is that teams often revert to old habits—sticking to silos, struggling with cross-functional collaboration, or lacking clear accountability in the new model. Without intentional effort, even successful individual adoption can fail to create lasting organizational impact.