The Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle is rooted in product development and product quality, with the idea to constantly improve a product through redesign so that the new product sells even better. This cycle was first proposed by Walter Shewhart and later developed, adapted, and popularized by William Edwards Deming in the 1950s. For the purpose of this certification, the PDCA cycle can be used to achieve effective quality control for the seven quality management principles: customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making, and relationship management. Each step in the cycle can be defined as follows:

Plan:

(1) Define the Project: To define the project purpose and scope.

(2) Current Situation: To further focus the improvement effort by gathering data on the current situation.

(3) Cause Analysis: To identify and verify root causes with data, to pave the way to effective solutions. The above steps provide inputs for: what is happening, what are the facts, what data supports the facts, what can be done to improve, and who needs to do what and when.

Do:

(4) Solutions: To develop, try out and implement solutions that address root causes. The above steps provide inputs to put the plan into action and measure the results.

Check:

(5) Results: To evaluate both the solutions and the plans used to implement them. Above step provides inputs for: what happened, was it what was expected, what should be done differently.

Act:

(6) Standardize: To maintain the gains by standardizing work methods or products.

(7) Future Plans: To anticipate future improvements and to preserve the lessons learned from this effort. The above steps provide inputs to measure the new process, and make sure the change is permanent.