One of my most popular blog articles is Plan:Do:Check:Act: Team Building Processing & De-Briefing. It really surprises me!
Working on some interesting organization development consulting projects focused on Breakthrough Improvements, we developed the multi-step iterative process above inspired by Toyota Kata.
Often the “End Goal” is not too clear and we are “stuck” or overwhelmed by just how far away the goal appears to be or we work for months on what we think is a great thing, only to find out that the customer or process owner hates it.
Breaking it down and ensuring that we have a process that drives results, allows:
- A feeling of movement + progress that leads to more progress & innovation
- Rapid feedback & evaluation of what’s working and what’s not working
- The ability to adjust & change
- In VUCA volatile ambiguous complex ambiguous environments we can create safe to fail experiments + quickly find areas of success to amplify
- Gather customer and user feedback during the work & implement it into the changes
Using PDCA / PDSA having a framework for asking good questions is a driver for innovation & Breakthrough Improvement.
Questions to Ask during the PDSA small steps and show how to avoid common management mistakes:
- Asking the wrong question
- Asking the right question too soon
What do you think?
How is image useful? What works for you to make progress steps? How do you avoid asking the wrong questions & asking the right question too soon?