By Doug Hall
Too many organizations chase innovation but miss the system behind success. In this eye-opening piece, Doug Hall urges leaders like you to stop obsessing over perfect ideas and instead master the PDSA cycle—Plan, Do, Study, Act. Learn how disciplined experimentation builds momentum, reduces risk, and transforms how teams approach big, bold change.
In an age of digital transformation and disruption, organizations are desperate for innovation. Yet too many companies remain stuck in endless loops of analysis paralysis, where new ideas die under the weight of perfectionism, fear, and corporate inertia. Having worked with thousands of teams across Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial startups alike, I’ve observed a consistent pattern: organizations that succeed at innovation don’t have better ideas – they have better systems for turning ideas into reality.
That system is PDSA – Plan-Do-Study-Act – a deceptively simple yet profoundly powerful approach pioneered by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. At its core, PDSA is a mindset and method for learning. It offers a structured path for solving problems, creating new knowledge, and neutralizing what I call “Death Threats” – those seemingly insurmountable obstacles that could prevent your innovation from succeeding.
From Theory to Practice: The PDSA Framework
We sometimes call this approach by the irreverent name “Fail FAST Fail CHEAP” (FFFC) cycles of learning. The emphasis is squarely on FAST and CHEAP – finding ways to reduce the risk of failure through rapid, low-cost experiments. Each cycle builds confidence, courage, and sparks new ideas for solving the problems you face.
The framework consists of four straightforward steps:
- PLAN: Define what you will be doing to learn more or problem-solve. This includes clarifying what success looks like and when you’ll know it’s time to stop.
- DO: Carry out your plan and document what happened, including data and observations.
- STUDY: Analyze what you learned. Did you achieve the learning or problem-solving outlined in your PLAN? Understanding why something worked is just as important as understanding why it didn’t.
- ACT: Make a decision based on your STUDY. Often, for substantial challenges, the answer is to repeat the cycle with a different approach. When your STUDY indicates success, implement the validated idea. Sometimes, the right decision is to stop the cycles and archive the learning for future reference.
Why PDSA Transforms Innovation
After decades of helping organizations of all sizes apply PSDA, I’ve witnessed its transformative power. Here’s why it works:
1. It reframes fear as a problem to solve.
Innovation requires change, and change ignites fear. By labeling fears as a “Death Threats” to be problem-solved, we create psychological distance. A personal attack like “Your idea won’t work” becomes the less threatening “There could be a Death Threat with your idea.” This shift provides space for problem-finders and idea-generators to collaborate on solutions.
2. It prevents value-destroying compromises.
Research shows that the average idea in large companies loses approximately 50% of its potential value due to compromises made during implementation. When organizations fully embrace PDSA instead of compromise, ideas increase in value by at least 26% on average. PDSA pushes teams to transform challenges rather than accept diluted solutions.
3. It builds psychological safety.
PDSA creates an environment where it’s safe to experiment and learn from failure. When teams understand that setbacks are just data points in the learning journey, they become more willing to take smart risks and share preliminary ideas that might not be fully formed.
4. It makes innovation tangible.
Many organizations struggle with innovation because it feels abstract. PDSA breaks the innovation process into concrete, manageable steps. This makes progress visible and measurable, which is critical for maintaining momentum and executive support.
PDSA in Action: Two Real-World Examples
The Food Company Cost Challenge
A team at a major food company faced profitability issues with a popular product containing an expensive ingredient. When an employee suggested using a similar lower-cost ingredient, she was initially told it wouldn’t work due to concerns about taste, shelf stability, and equipment compatibility.
After learning PDSA, she conducted laboratory-scale tests to address taste and stability issues. Despite solving these problems, production challenges remained. Just as she was about to give up, a breakthrough emerged during a problem-solving session: applying her laboratory discoveries to a third raw material compatible with their equipment. The result? A solution that delivered on flavor, stability, and manufacturability – increasing margins significantly without compromising quality.
Night Shift Innovation
At a manufacturing company where we had trained the leadership team, the night shift encountered a production line failure that defied conventional fixes. After an hour of unproductive debate, someone suggested “using those problem-solving things” they’d learned in training.
The team identified three critical production operations, conducted a Mind Dump for potential solutions, and began combining ideas – even contradictory ones – to generate new possibilities. Within half an hour, they had ranked potential experiments by ease of implementation and likelihood of success. After two PDSA cycles, they restored production, saving thousands in downtime costs.
Implementing PDSA in Your Company
For leaders seeking to instill PDSA thinking, start with these practices:
- Address all three Death Threat categories: Technology Risk (Will it work?), Market Risk (Will it sell?), and Organizational Risk (Is the return worth the investment?).
- Begin with small steps: As psychologist Robert Maurer explains, “All changes, even positive ones, are scary… small steps disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought.”
- Validate Death Threats before solving them: Sometimes perceived obstacles aren’t actually barriers at all, particularly when ideas are meaningfully unique.
- Use “teaching moments”: Help employees understand how their work connects to the broader system and how to focus on learning rather than task completion.
- Diagnose resistance: When employees resist PDSA, determine if the issue is knowledge gaps, time constraints, or lack of mission alignment.
The Ultimate Innovation Engine
As Dr. Deming taught, PDSA is how reliable knowledge is created. It’s how ideas become reality. In a business environment increasingly defined by uncertainty and rapid change, there is perhaps no more valuable skill than the ability to learn and adapt through disciplined experimentation. Organizations that master PDSA don’t just innovate occasionally – they develop an ongoing capacity for reinvention that keeps them perpetually ahead of the curve.
Doug Hall
