Classroom Training
Step #7 - Program Improvement
After asking the questions in the survey above, you may discover that one or more improvements can be made. If so, it's important to carefully develop and implement the change through effective change management principles.
Deming's PDSA Cycle
By following a simple 4-step process, called the PDSA Cycle, small improvements can be continually in the training program, or any other program, no matter how large or small.
The PDSA Cycle uses a systematic series of steps to continually improve a product or process. The process is called a "cycle" because the steps are continually repeated. As the image to the right shows, the PDSA Cycle contains four primary steps. These four steps are repeated over and over as part of a never-ending cycle of continual improvement.
Let's see how we can apply these steps to develop a safe work procedure:
- Plan: In this step, we identify a safety process or plan of action.
- Do: We implement the change on a small scale, such as a change in some part of a training course. We keep it small scale to limit the negative effects if the change fails.
- Study: We carefully study the plan to check the progress of the test see if it's working.
- Act: In this step we take the information from the previous step to either adopt the change, revise it (by going through the cycle again), or we abandon it.
In the example above:
- If the new safety training works, we keep it
- If the training needs improvement, we continue the cycle making small changes
- If the training does not work at all, we throw it out and start over.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
6-9. Using the PDSA Cycle, it's important that changes in a training program are small in scale to _____.
You forgot to answer the question!