What is PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) Cycle?
PDCA Cycle is an iterative four-step management method used in business to focus on continuous improvement of processes. The PDCA cycle consists of four steps namely Plan, Do, Check, and Act. It is one of the key concepts of quality and it is also called the Deming circle/cycle/wheel.
Some of the cases where we use PDCA Cycle are when implementing any changes or when a new improvement project starts or when defining a repetitive process
Let’s see what we do in each stage of PDCA Cycle in SDLC.
PLAN:
Plan a change (either to solve a problem or to improve some areas) and decide what goal to achieve.
Here we define the objective, strategy and supporting methods to achieve the goal of our plan.
DO:
To design or revise the business requirement as planned .Here we implement the plan (in terms of putting the plan into an action) and test its performance
CHECK:
Evaluate the results to make sure whether we reach the goals as planned Here we make a checklist to record what went well and what did not work
ACT:
If the changes are not as planned then continue the cycle to achieve the goal with a different plan. Here we take action on what is not working as planned. Task is to keep trying to improve the process with different plan.
PDCA Cycle is a continuous process until we achieve our goals which we planned.