Change Management Using PDCA | Operational Excellence Quick Hits
Quick Hits share weekly tips and techniques on topics related to Operational Excellence. This week’s theme relates to contributors to Organizational Performance Part 14: Change Management. We hope you enjoy the information presented!
Speaker 1: (00:06)
In last week’s session, we talked about sustainability and using coaching as a technique to coach the employees, to change their behaviors, to support the sustainability. This week’s session we’re going to talk about root cause analysis and problem solving and I have that as one of the foundation pieces, which also supports the sustainability element.
Speaker 1: (00:28)
When we look at sustainability, we always say that process improvement is not an improvement if it’s not sustainable. So we use the PDCA process for continuous improvement and as we make improvements to the organization using the PDCA cycle, we want to ensure that the improvement does not backslide to previous conditions. So when we move up the steps, we want to make sure that the PDCA cycle is continuously used, but to prevent backsliding, we want to put a wedge in place to prevent the backsliding. So I want to talk a little bit about the PDCA cycle that we use, and we’ll just focus on the plan step.
Speaker 1: (01:15)
So the plan step, there’s four elements of the plan step. Most people skip the first two steps. So if we’re having an issue and undesirable effect, the first thing I’m going to do is assess the current situation and understand why the situation is happening. Then once we gather data about the situation, then we define the problems, so defining the problem is the second step. Then once we define the problem, we want to go through and identify primary causes. So what are the things that are causing the effects to be evident? And we want to identify those primary causes. Then we want to use that information to analyze and determine the root cause. So we always want to speak with data and find evidence that supports our logic and our root cause analysis. So this is the planning cycle of the PDCA cycle.
Speaker 1: (02:07)
Next week, we’ll talk about the countermeasures and implementing countermeasures and how to define the permanent countermeasures that are going to solve the problem.