EXPERT ANSWERS
S U B J E C T M AT T E R E X P E R T S TA K E O N YO U R Q U A L I T Y- R E L AT E D Q U E R I E S
THIS MONTH’S QUESTION
Did W. Edwards Deming
invent the plan-do-check-
act (PDCA) cycle?
OUR RESPONSE
o, Deming did not invent or
N
originate PDCA; it emerged
in Japan. Deming’s earlier
teaching in Japan may have
influenced PDCA, but he never
fully embraced it. He later published
the plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycle
and credited Walter A. Shewhart.
Attributing PDCA to Deming is a
common misconception. An informal
poll of LinkedIn users, conducted in
mid-2020, found that 72% of respon-
dents thought it was Deming’s idea.
Analysis of the poll data indicated the
misunderstanding spans across conti-
nents, industries and job functions.
Some may find the distinction trivial,
and it is fair to admit that understanding
the origin of the PDCA cycle has little
or no effect on the application of such
concepts. Still, it is a point of heritage—
heritage concerning important forebears
of our field.
Deming’s work is a good place to
seek clarity. In his 1986 canonical
quality classic Out of the Crisis,1 there is
a figure labeled “The Shewhart Cycle”
(see Figure 1). It doesn’t yet carry the
catchy PDCA title (nor the PDSA varia-
tion), but identifies a cycle of planning,
doing, checking and acting, and credits
a 1939 work by Shewhart for the idea.
To further connect the dots to the
PDSA cycle, Deming’s 1994 book, The
6 || QP || April 2021
FIGURE 1
The Shewhart Cycle
Study the results. What
did we learn? What
4 1
can we predict?
Observe the effects 3 2
of the change or test.
Step 5. Repeat step 1, with knowledge accumulated.
Step 6. Repeat step 2, and onward.
New Economics,2 will help. In the book,
the Shewhart Cycle figure is updated to
a now recognizable form, complete with
letters P, D, S and A (see Online Figure 1,
which can be found on this department’s
webpage at qualityprogress.com). The
new form carries the title “The Shewhart
Cycle for Learning and Improvement; the
PDSA Cycle.”
Given Deming’s evidence, it’s fair
to credit Shewhart with the origin of
PDSA, but it’s important to recognize
that all continuous improvement cycles
draw on fundamental concepts from
much earlier. The underlying scientific
method is found in Deming’s PDSA
and the Japanese PDCA cycles. The
hypothesis-experiment-evaluation
process, written by Francis Bacon in
1620, 3 is a common ancestor linking all
continuous improvement cycles to the
scientific method.
Debate persists on the differences
between PDCA and PDSA, but the
entwined lineage suggests the differ-
ences may be more trivial than the
proper attribution of the terms’ origins.
There are arguments for uniqueness
What could be the most important
accomplishments of the team? What
changes might be desirable? What
data are available? Are new observations
needed? If yes, plan a change or test.
Decide how to use the observations.
Carry out the change or test decided upon,
preferably on a small scale.
between PDCA and PDSA, but the
common theme of the scientific method
persists. PDCA has prevailed, while
Deming arguably has become the
most recognizable name in quality.
Misattribution and misunder-
standing of the improvement cycle
is pervasive and not new. Deming
addressed it so succinctly in a footnote
in Out of the Crisis that it is reasonable
to believe he was aware of the issue
more than 35 years ago:
“I called it in Japan in 1950 and
onward the Shewhart cycle. It went
into immediate use in Japan under the
name of the Deming cycle, and so it has
been called there ever since.”4
This was Deming’s attempt to set the
record straight, and we do the same.  QP
EDITOR’S NOTE
References listed in this department can be found on
the department’s webpage at qualityprogress.com.
This response was written by W. Frazier Pruitt,
iStock.com/orsonsurf
senior engineer and quality assurance supervisor,
Southco Inc., Rochester, NY, and S.M. Waqas Imam,
management system consultant, Exoexcellence (SMC)
Pvt. Lt , Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.