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.

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.

The focus is on functionality rather 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.

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.

Enhancing customer experience and loyalty

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.

What is the difference between PDSA and PDCA?

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.

• Using data, the team can make adjustments to the solution and reassess the hypothesis.
• Others see individuals embracing change but fail to scale collaboration across teams (L3).
• PDCA cycle is an iterative process for continually improving products, people, and services.
• IMD complies with applicable laws and regulations, including with respect to international sanctions that may be imposed on individuals and countries.
• Remember, the goal here is to identify usability issues or performance bottlenecks before moving forward — not get glowing reviews.

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.

Increasing competitive market presence

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.

• It’s a continuous improvement model where each cycle informs the next, leading to incremental improvements over time.
• The PDCA cycle is a simple yet effective framework for identifying and rectifying issues at any level of an organization.
• This approach typically requires lower investment and carries less risk than other innovation types, making it accessible to organizations of all sizes.
• During this phase, you find either a problem that you want to solve or an opportunity for improvement you want to seize.
• Feel free to reach out to me at if you have any questions about the transformation model.

Key Concept

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.

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.

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 which of the following is iterative four stage approach for continually improving the process 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.

Radical innovation creates entirely new products, services, or technologies that fundamentally change industries. Unlike incremental approaches, radical innovation represents a complete departure from existing solutions rather than gradual improvement. The four types of innovation – disruptive, incremental, architectural, and radical – each offer distinct pathways to solving business challenges and gaining competitive advantage. Understanding these approaches will help you develop targeted solutions to your most pressing problems. PDSA is an analytical process that considers the process as is, analyzes it further, revises it as appropriate and then repeats the cycle for continuous improvement.

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.

A common mistake leaders make is assuming that people will naturally adapt to new tools and technologies without proper training and support. But transformation doesn’t happen just because new software is installed or new frameworks are introduced—it happens when people know how to use these tools effectively and feel empowered to do so. Organizations pour millions into new tools, strategies, and frameworks, yet many still struggle.

Inconsistent feedback

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.

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.