Getting Real With Rapid-Cycle PDSA

The simplicity of smooth, upward, linear progress is a myth

Marketers are relentless in their efforts to seduce you with fancy tools, acronyms, Japanese terminology—and promises—about their versions of formal improvement structures such as Six Sigma, lean, lean Six Sigma, or the Toyota Production System, each with its own unique toolbox.

In my last column, I discussed the need of becoming more effective by using far fewer tools in conjunction with critical thinking to understand variation.

In the midst of all this, I’ve seen W. Edwards Deming’s and Walter A. Shewhart’s brilliant, fundamental plan-do-study-act (PDSA) morph to an oft-spouted platitude. I laugh when I hear people casually comment that PDSA and plan-do-check-act (PDCA) are the same thing. They’re not.

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Comments

PDSA and PDCA

Davis, you are right on target on the differences between PDCA and PDSA. Ron Moen and I were personally instructred on the difference by Dr. Kano when we gave our talk in Tokyo in 2009. PDCA is aimed at implementation of a standard to meet a goal. JUSE, Dr. Mizuno and Dr. Ishikawa have always been clear on their intent.

Deming finally landed on PDSA in 1988 and was introduced in his four day seminars. It was published in the New Economics in 1993. Deming referred to it as the Shewhart Cycle, however what Deming introduced did not look anything like what Shewhart had in 1939. By 1993 the PDSA cycle had the idea of deductive and inductive reasoning built into the cycle. Deming worked on developing the PDSA cycle from 1986 to 1993.

When API first published it in 1991 in the book, Quality Improvement through Planned Experimentation, Deming was quick to warn Ron with the following note: “If it speaks of the PDSA cycle, be sure to call it PDSA, not the corruption PDCA.” Deming, 17 November 1990

"Corruption" was fairly strong language for Deming.

Best regards,

Cliff Norman, API

Thanks, Cliff, for the clarification

As always, Cliff, a very thoughtful comment...and the reason why I recommend The Improvement Guide as the best resource for truly understanding PDSA.

Davis

Invisible Low-Hanging Fruit

As you quoted Hacquebord: The most important problems are not the obvious ones.

Many consultants talk about the low-hanging fruit in an organization, but few can find it because it's invisible.

It's hiding in row after row of Excel spreadsheets about defects or in mainframe accounting, CRM and operating systems.

Once you get the data into Excel, you can use PivotTables to mine the data and find the invisible low-hanging fruit.

Then you can use control charts and Pareto charts to create improvement projects that will achieve breakthrough improvements.

Spot on, Jay...

...as always!

I appreciate your simple, but counter-intutitive, approach to improvement and am in total alignment with your efforts to stamp out the overuse of tools and certifications.

Davis