Richard Dolman and Julia Watts of Glade Consulting break down one of the core tenets of ISO Management Systems – the “Plan Do Check Act” (PDCA) cycle. Originating in the early 20th century, it is a foundation for driving continual improvement in an organisation.
Here at Glade, we encourage our clients that if they remember nothing else in the work we do with them, remember the Plan Do Check Act philosophy. By effectively adopting this, your business will head in the direction that you want it to. This demands a systematic approach to the running of your business in order to continually improve it. Your business can flourish by following these simple steps…
Plan: Determine what you need to do to achieve successful outcomes. At this stage, you need to recognise the issues that your business faces 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.
You will also need to consider your objectives and how you will measure your success against them.
Finally, you should 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 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 we 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 by 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 and may struggle to see how they add value when there’s so much else that needs to be done. We can help them manage this activity by providing the extra resource needed to carry them out.
“We encourage our clients that if they remember nothing else in the work we do with them, remember the Plan Do Check Act philosophy.”
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.
And so the cycle continues – by systematically and continually working your way around it, you will make significant positive changes in your business.
