Plan Do Check Assess is a management process that helps you to improve your operations and your actions over time. The PDCA cycle replaces the notion of fault with learning from experience, encouraging a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation. ![[PDCA.png|PDCA cycle diagram showing Plan, Do, Check, Assess steps in a circular flow]] The Plan Do Check Assess framework allows you to review your way of working and helps you think about your activities in a more structured fashion. You do this by actually doing, observing outcomes, and reflecting on what worked and what didn’t. You anticipate, you set objectives and pursue them, check the quality of your efforts and then replan your next cycle of doing. As you repeat these steps, feed back with the aim of continually improving your process, fostering both personal and organizational growth. ## Video of Plan Do Check Assess (PDCA) Below is a short video that describes some of the key concepts in management including the Plan Do Check Assess (PDCA) cycle.  Plan, Do, Check, Assess Tools: #Ayoa #Todoist Mind map visualizing management concepts including PDCA, Eisenhower Matrix, and GTD and software used for this such as Todoist, Ayoa and Sortd. ![[mindmap management video.png|Mind map visualizing management concepts including PDCA, Eisenhower Matrix, and GTD]] ## The Eisenhower Matrix used for PDCA The [Eisenhower Decision Matrix](obsidian://open?file=48.07%20Posts%2FManagement%2FEisenhower%20Decision%20Matrix.md) is a representation of choices between what’s important and what is urgent, and helps to determine next actions. This tool is especially useful for prioritizing tasks and managing time effectively. ![[eisenhower-decision-matrix.png|Eisenhower Decision Matrix diagram showing urgent vs important task quadrants]] Choose tasks that are both important and urgent. Some things are neither, and you shouldn’t be doing those at all. This type of planning is a way to evaluate your activities, your desired outcomes, and what you should be doing now and in the future. ## Getting Things Done You’re firefighting, doing essential things, responding to the accountant, to customers, filling in the forms. You are already making notes, setting yourself objectives and tasks. You might be trying to establish a short-term, medium-term, long-term plan, fixing goals and then doing on a daily basis. The weekly review, as part of the [Getting Things Done (GTD) framework](obsidian://open?file=48.07%20Posts%2FManagement%2FGetting%20Things%20Done%20\(GTD\)%20framework.md), is an opportunity to take stock, assess and replan or, at least, decide on next actions. It is also an opportunity to analyse performance based on qualitative or quantitative measures, such as productivity, efficiency, or customer satisfaction. ![[pdca flowchart.png|Flowchart illustrating the PDCA cycle with steps and feedback loops]] ## The objective is to improve Use GTD to set yourself tasks at different levels of focus and different horizons: short-term, medium-term, and long-term. The objective may be in a particular direction, but also for things to be easier to achieve. Choose the easiest route when possible. The objective is to operate more smoothly, be more efficient, and thus make more money. Now checking, as part of PDCA, is going back and assessing the work in terms of quality and planning in order to avoid reworking and helps maintain high standards. ## Measuring Your Trajectory This assessment is really about comparing your objectives with your actual trajectory. ![[measuring-your-trajectory.png|Diagram showing a trajectory line comparing current progress to desired objectives]] Establish a future position, a desired outcome, and look to see whether you’re going in the right direction or not. You can make some decisions about the direction in which you need and want to go. You can take action to bring you back onto your original trajectory or decide that your objective is no longer appropriate and move off in another direction. Invest time in your strategy, but get a handle on whether things are going the right way. Measures help you to determine how far you are from the intended course. Expected turnover is an example of such a measure. If you expect your business to make more than it is, you might not be on the right trajectory, and may need to think of corrective measures. You don’t always know which way to go. You should determine the way things are going now and then reaffirm the way you want things to go. Sometimes it is easier to know the way that you **don’t want to go**. It may be harder to express the way you want things to go. Base your objectives on the way things are now and your desires for the future. If you do establish your trajectory, your future position, and your desired outcomes, you can look to see whether you’re going in the right direction or not. You can make some decisions about the direction you want to go. ## Do Measure Analyse This flowchart maps out an elementary management cycle: Do Measure Analyse. Similar to Plan Do Check Assess, the Do Measure Analyse cycle starts with Doing, rather than planning. This may be relevant where the plan is mature, in which case we do. Sometimes we cannot really plan; we just have to do, and the doing shows the way. ![[measure-do-analyse-cycle.png|Flowchart showing Do, Measure, Analyse cycle for continuous improvement]] Start with a baseline description that describes the current system; the way things work, the process, focusing on function. You may wish to analyse functional requirements to map the future system. Try to improve the system, make it more profitable, and to configure it in a particular way. It might not just be about money, rather about specific things to achieve, things you enjoy doing more than others. Set your sights on those things. The idea of a cycle is to do, measure and analyse how things have gone (based on measured indicators). A simple case is in translation. Measuring the time to do orders and the number of words done in an hour helps to make reasonable estimates. On-time delivery improves relationships with customers and depends on correct estimates of planned time. In the translation market, we developed a database to measure and analyse production statistics. This measurement helps to fix costs and prices and to know what the rate should be. The result helps to improve performance and makes work more comfortable. Productivity may also improve by focusing on just one job rather than two. So, this cycle goes around; the baseline management system described in a system diagram. The idea is to do for a while, measure, look at the results and find opportunities for improvement.