Re: PDSA, PDCA, SPDA, etc

["John Hunter" <managementimprovement@gmail.com>]

I recall Joiner Associates (Joiner, Scholtes et. al) talked about the
CAPDo variation.

Check
Act
Plan
Do

Of course it is a cycle so once you get started you just keep spinning
it.  I think your way would work fine too though I think mixing up
sequence of the letters may create more confusion than it is worth
(even if in truth some planing is done in the first "study" phase).

To me the critical step is not exactly how the cycle is started but
that it is started.

Other critical factors
- starting it on the right projects (which basically requires study,
or at least thought - which I think is your point)
- prediction
- evaluation (was the experiment successful)
- deploying successes widely
- learning from unsuccessful experiments
- consistent use of a process improvement model (PDSA or something
similar) to avoid tampering and continual change but no improvement

  John Hunter
  Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
  http://management.curiouscatblog.net/