Problem Solving Methods - PDSA

Question 1

What is PDCA?

Answer 1

Plan - Do - Check - Act
Developed in 1930’s by Walter Shewhart at Bell Telephone Laboratories

Question 2

What is PDSA?

Answer 2

Plan - Do - Study - Act
Further developed version of PDCA (by E. Edwards Deming) with renamed third step since “check” emphasized inspection over analysis

Question 3

What is the most important step in PDSA?

Answer 3

Plan

Question 4

What is the purpose of the plan step?

Answer 4

to identify an opportunity and develop a plan for process improvement or change

Question 5

What are some key questions to ask in the plan step?

Answer 5

• What are you trying to do?
• Who, what, when, and where is the opportunity for improvement?
• How will you know if the change worked?
• Why are you doing this change?
• Where are you going to do this change?
• Who is participating in this change?
• How long is it going to take?

Question 6

What is the purpose of the do step?

Answer 6

to implement what is detailed in the plan step and test the process improvement or change, typically on a small, manageable scale

Question 7

What are the activities of the do step?

Answer 7

1) Do what you planned to do.
2) Write down what you see as you do the new process. What changed and what did not?
3) As observations are collected ask, is this doing what I want it to do?

Question 8

What is the purpose of the study step?

Answer 8

to observe and analyze the effects of what was done in the do step

Question 9

What are some questions to ask in the study step?

Answer 9

• What do the data tell us?
• What did we learn?
• What went right, and why?
• What went wrong, and why?
• What was unexpected?
• Is this change going to get us to our goal?

Question 10

What is the purpose of the act step?

Answer 10

to take action based on what you learned in the study step

if it worked –> implement on a broader scale
if it did not work –> repeat PDSA with different or additional changes or start fresh with a new plan

Question 11

What are some key questions in the act step?

Answer 11

• what do you want to change?
  write down what everyone should do and ask:
• can you make it better or easier to do?
• how do you sustain the change?
• how do you make sure everyone is doing the same thing all the time?

Question 12

What is continuous quality improvement?

Answer 12

a steady incremental change that increases the level of performance with each increment/step

Question 13

What are the benefits of the PDSA model? (4)

Answer 13

• easy to understand
• dynamic and effective way to rapidly test improvement ideas on a manageable scale
• appropriate to use on simple and complex work processes
• widely known, used and respected