Dear President Obama...

One of my favorite tools for continuous improvement is the plan/do/check/act cycle. It is simple to use as are many improvement techniques. The key is being disciplined to use the cycle every time you seek improvement.


If you want to improve a business process, develop an initial plan of attack. The plan could be a experiment or trial with the process at different settings. You do not know if the plan will work but you want to put a best foot forward.


Faith without works is dead! After the plan is established, do it or carry it out initially on a small scale. If you change the process (in your trial), it is usually prudent not to run the changed process for an extended length of time.


At some point, you must stop and check the results of the do phase. Measure the results of the experiment or trial. (your measurement technique should have been decided in the plan phase). What did you learn from the data or information? What did you not learn?


Finally, take what you learned and decide on the next actions:
a. You may like the results but need more evidence to make permanent changes. Start a new cycle with a plan to collect more evidence.
b. The results may have been disastrous and you need to go back to plan and start over.
c. You may be thrilled with the results and decide to make the changes permanent. Go back to the first phase and develop a plan to implement the changes.


We could discuss and debate the recently signed stimulus bill all day and night. The fact is, it will happen for better or worse. I hope and pray that our leaders use the PDCA cycle to manage the roll out. Is it a good or bad plan? I've heard many arguments on both sides of the coin. My gut tells me that something had to happen. I'm not smart enough to know what the something is.


The stimulus package is a plan. It was debated and argued at length until enough approving votes were garnered to get the President's signature. We don't know if the plan will work. We need to have faith the plan is an act of putting best feet forward as I described above.

So now we begin to enter the do phase. Money will slowly but surely be dispensed to states and other recipients.

How will we stop and check the progress of the do phase? Are there any checks built into the system? If they exist, they should have been decided well before the bill was signed. To me, this is so important. The American public needs to know if the package is driving the desired effect. Sure we may start to see signs of improvement but our state and national leadership must speak of the package's progress in layman's terms.

Finally, after checking the progress, appropriate action must be taken:
a. If the plan is not working, Congress and the President must not hesitate to go back to the drawing board and develop a different plan.
b.If the plan is working as is, the leadership should begin discussing lessons learned and implement controls to prevent recurrence of this economic mess.
c. If the plan is working but needs tweaking or revision, all parties must come together to plan the necessary improvements.



Stephen Deas

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