Episode Details

Read more about Dr. Deming's work in his books, Out of the Crisis and The New Economics.

Cliff Norman and Ron Moen, of Associates in Process Improvement (API) discuss the history of the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA Cycle) and their research on the subject.

Cliff and Ron start with how the underpinning of Deming's philosophy was the idea of "continuous improvement", with the PDSA Cycle underlying that philosophy. They discuss the PDSA Cycle of never-ending improvement and learning, and how the iterative nature of the cycle fits with The Deming System of Profound Knowledge®. As Ron shares, Dr. Deming believed that "business is more exacting than science" as businesses must continually learn and improve to survive.

Next Cliff and Ron delve into why they wrote a paper on the PDSA Cycle. Ron explains that the quality movement in America began after the NBC White Paper, If Japan Can..Why Can't We? aired in 1980. This raised interest in the Japan and the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle, which originated there. Although Dr. Deming never spoke of PDCA, it was connected to him in the early 80's. That incorrect attribution was the inspiration behind the paper.

Cliff and Ron discuss the evolution of the PDSA Cycle, starting hundreds of years ago with the theories of Galileo and Aristotle. Listen as they take you through the progression, from the Shewhart Cycle, through the Deming Wheel and ultimately the PDSA Cycle as we know it today.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:14] In this episode of The Deming Institute Podcast. Ron Moen and Cliff Norman of API are our guests. Ron and Cliff will discuss the history of PDSA and some of the research they've done on the subject.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:35] Hi, my name is Tripp Babbitt, I am host of the Deming Insitute podcast. My guests today are Cliff Norman and Ron Moen.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:44] Welcome, gentlemen.

Ron Moen: [00:00:46] Thanks, Tripp. Glad to be with you.

Cliff Norman: [00:00:47] Thank you. Thanks.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:49] I wanted to start out with our subject today is going to be kind of the history of plan, do study act. But for those in the audience that maybe are quite familiar with the Shujaat cycle and the history of Plan D0 Study Act, can you tell us a little bit about how it fits into the broader Deming philosophy?

Cliff Norman: [00:01:09] This is called the underpinning of Deming's philosophy was the idea of continuous improvement. And the PDSA cycle is kind of underlies that idea. Once we start improving has to be never ending.And the idea that learning and improvement are never ending underlying that under theory of knowledge.

Cliff Norman: [00:01:29] And as we'll discuss, having was heavily influenced by pragmatists out of Harvard University and the idea of inductive, deductive and inductive learning and the innovative nature of those two ideas are built in to the PDSA cycle. So it really fits up under the theory of knowledge in terms of a system of profound knowledge. What to add to that?

Ron Moen: [00:01:57] Sure. I think the context here for Deming, at least, is that we're talking about improvement of products and services, processes and systems. So it has a business context, but it goes broader than business. But I do have a quote used to say in a seminar. He said, business is more exacting than science. And what he meant by that is that a scientist really doesn't plan to study. You set up your experiments and you share what you've learned. You do your publication. Whereas in business you actually say in business you have to continually learn continuous improvement, Kyra. But also you need to act. So it's more exacting t