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PDCA Cycle: The Four Gears of Continual Improvement

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The ITIL Lifecycle for services includes a key stage called continuous service improvement. This is covered in ITIL certification exam questions. This stage includes all the other stages, including Service Strategy, Service Design and Service Transition, as well as Service Operation. There will always be something that can improve in each of these stages. Continuous service improvement examines all stages in order to identify areas that need improvement. Constant service improvement, like all stages of the ITIL Service Lifecycle has specific processes. These processes are covered in ITIL foundation certification training. The most important of these is the PDCA cycle, which guides service owners through continuous service improvement.
The PDCA Cycle
Edwards Deming developed this cycle as a management strategy. It results in higher quality, increased productivity, and a better competitive position. This cycle is also known by the Deming cycle. This cycle is used across many industries and business areas to measure and control results. Then, based on the results, you can take action to improve your output.
The PDCA cycle’s four-part quality lifecycle is the basis. These four parts are the Acronym for the PDCA Cycle: Plan, Do. Check. Act. This cycle can be used to improve, such as, an online ordering process or the Service Level Management process in an organization.
The 4 Activities of a PDCA Cycle
Plan
Planning the improvements is the first step in the PDCA cycle. This step identifies the measures that will be successful. A gap analysis is done and a plan is created to close the gap using a series of step-by-step improvements.
Do
Do is the second activity in the PDCA cycle. It refers to the implementation and maintenance of improvements. To close any gaps identified in the Plan phase, a project is initiated and implemented. A project may include several steps to improve a service, or process.
Check out
Check is the third activity in the PDCA cycle. More accurately, Check can be described as Monitoring Measuring And Reviewing. The Plan phase includes the review of the results and the approval of the measures for success.
Act
Act is the fourth and final activity in the PDCA cycle. This step is where improvements are made. All improvements made are implemented. You can use the PDCA cycle to improve any ITIL Service Management process.
The PDCA Cycle and the ITIL Service Livecycle
This cycle can be used to improve any Service Management process. ITIL CSI is a fundamental tenet that encourages continuous improvement. This PDCA cycle is a repeatable process in the continuous service improvement stage. This improvement should be achieved in all four phases (Service Strategy, Service Design and Service Transition) of the ITIL Service lifecycle.

The “check” and the “act” activities of PDCA cycle are the continual improvement activities. In the first two activities, plan, do and improve, improvement areas are identified. The steps to be taken are then determined and implemented. The next step is the check and act. These steps monitor and control the outcomes of the implemented actions.
The PDCA cycle visualized
This figure shows how PDCA cycles help align the business and IT. The graph has two dimensions, as you can see. The vertical axis represents maturity level, while the horizontal axis depicts the time scale. The PDCA cycle has a barrier. This is the consolidation of the level attained, i.e. The baseline. This is the baseline from which the first measurements were taken.

After the baseline,

Ferdinand
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Project Failure: We are at It Again Serendipity happens. I replied to a student Inside pmStudent eLearning with what turned to be an article about project success and failure. Shim wrote, “Projects failure rates?” a few days later. The conventional wisdom is wrong! His blog is amazing. I began leaving comments, and it quickly became one of those comments that should be its own post. Chaos I mean the reports that various organizations have on project failure rates. Shim outlined the following in his post:
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Project Failure: We are at It Again Serendipity happens. I replied to a student Inside pmStudent eLearning with what turned to be an article about project success and failure. Shim wrote, “Projects failure rates?” a few days later. The conventional wisdom is wrong! His blog is amazing. I began leaving comments, and it quickly became one of those comments that should be its own post. Chaos I mean the reports that various organizations have on project failure rates. Shim outlined the following in his post:
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