Quick turnaround Easy to train others Tried & tested approach Highly impactful

Can be repeated Reduces risk Decisions based on data No stone unturned

Plan, Do, Check, Act

What is covered in this course?
Introduction

Introduction Fundamentals of PDCA

- What is covered in this course? - What is PDCA?

- What is the purpose of this course? - What is change?
- What is continuous improvement?
- Purpose & benefits of the approach.
What is covered in this course?
Introduction

PDCA Demonstration Close out

- Overview. - Scenario. - Review of key learnings.

- Plan. - Pre-PDCA work. - Hints & tips.
- Do. - Plan. - Thank you.
- Check. - Do.
- Act. - Check.
- Act.
What is the purpose of this course?
Introduction

Introduction

- What is covered in this course?

- What is the purpose of this course?
What is the purpose of this course?
Introduction

- Plan, do, check, act is a highly effective and well renowned approach to delivering business improvement.
- IF delivered correctly, PDCA (as it is abbreviated) is a tool that can yield great benefits for your organization on both an
immediate and continuous basis.
- This course is going to show you how to plan for the realization of these benefits and deliver plan, do, check, act projects
which enable that realization.
- At the end of this course, you will be able to:

Explain each stage means, Deliver a full, end to end Confidently deploy and Begin your journey of culture
entails and how to ensure PDCA project, confidently embed change and change, shifting mindsets and
its successful conclusion. and successfully. continuous improvement. attitudes towards change.

- As stated, the main purpose of this course is to give you confidence – to deploy, to explain and to change.
- The course has been designed to ensure this – with a full end to end project explored through the demonstration section,
including templates and techniques to use, hints & tips based on tried and tested methods and using a real-life scenario to
take you through the trials and tribulations of a plan, do, check, act project.
What is PDCA?
Fundamentals of PDCA

Fundamentals of PDCA

- What is PDCA?
- What is change?
- What is continuous improvement?
- Purpose & benefits of the approach.
What is PDCA?
Fundamentals of PDCA

- Also known as PDCA, PDSA, Deming Wheel or the Shewhart Cycle.

- PDCA is a simple approach to business improvement that is often
tied to continuous improvement, when delivered on a continuous
nature.
- Its cycle structure is designed specifically to enable it to be done
again, and again, and again – continually and for an unlimited
amount of time (or limited, if needed).

- The premise behind the approach is:

• You identify that there is a NEED for a PDCA (i.e. a problem that
needs fixing, something needs improving).
• You design / identify what the solution to this need is.
• You pilot test this on a small scale.
• You review the results of the pilot.
• The results help inform you as to whether or not you are going to
take the solution forward, amend it or find another.

- At its most simple, that is PDCA – a relatively quick way for you to
understand your options and make more informed decisions,
based on the data you produce.
What is change?
Fundamentals of PDCA

Fundamentals of PDCA

- What is PDCA?
- What is change?
- What is continuous improvement?
- Purpose & benefits of the approach.
What is change?
Fundamentals of PDCA

- Asking “what is change?” is of course, a loaded question.

- What change means to people will depend on who they are, the
change they are experiencing, the impact of the change etc.
- It is also very much linked to context.
- In the organizational sense, change is happening all of the time,
across the whole company, all departments and teams, projects and
individuals.
- Needs change, challenges change, the responses to these needs and
challenges change.
- Change can be once in a lifetime, or it can be every day. It can be
irregular, constant, welcome, unwelcome, started by someone or
forced by something.
- Change can be positive, change can be negative.

- Therefore, as you can see, defining change is an extremely difficult

thing to do – especially in an organizational sense.
- The organization changes, but so to does the market within which it
exists, as do the people working within it, as do the customers that
may purchase from it etc.
What is change?
Fundamentals of PDCA

- If we stick to the organizational setting, change is one of those things

we seek for the better.
- Something has gone wrong, we need to change our approach to rectify
this.
- Something has changed within the market, the organization needs to
change its products or services to keep up with evolving needs.
- The organization is aware of the need to change and evolve as it moves
forward, therefore it launches a series of projects to enable it to do so.

- With PDCA, we have a methodology that can be used to both deliver

change and respond to it.
- If something has gone awry, PDCA can be utilized to identify what,
identify a solution and deploy this.
- If something is uncertain, PDCA can deploy pilot testing to see if the
proposal is the right one and show the pathway to deliver this.
- If something needs changing, PDCA can be used as a project
management approach to identify the change needed, identify the
solution and deploy them.

- With organizational change, it is inevitable, therefore tooling yourself

with an effective methodology (such as PDCA) is crucial.
What is continuous improvement?
Fundamentals of PDCA

Fundamentals of PDCA

- What is PDCA?
- What is change?
- What is continuous improvement?
- Purpose & benefits of the approach.
What is continuous improvement?
Fundamentals of PDCA

- Continuous improvement can be seen, defined and described in a number of ways. Some of these definitions are right on. Others,
maybe less so.
- At a definition level, continuous improvement is the ongoing improvement of products, services or processes through incremental
and breakthrough improvements.
- Notice the stress on the word ongoing. Continuous improvement is not a one-off activity – it is something you should be looking
to conduct yesterday, today and tomorrow – on an ongoing, continual basis.
- You can improve, as mentioned, products, services and processes, with one of the main reasons for this to improve the output of
your organizational activities – so potentially your services and products.
- You can deliver continuous improvement through projects, initiatives, programmes, training – even BAU practices (daily huddles,
delivering tools regularly, mindset etc.)
- I see continuous improvement as a methodology, an approach and a mindset.
- So how does all of this relate to plan, do, check, act?
What is continuous improvement?
Fundamentals of PDCA
 What is continuous improvement?
Fundamentals of PDCA

New standard
PERFORMANCE

Standard New standard

New standard

Standard

TIME
Purpose & benefits of the approach
Fundamentals of PDCA

Fundamentals of PDCA

- What is PDCA?
- What is change?
- What is continuous improvement?
- Purpose & benefits of the approach.
Purpose & benefits of the approach
Fundamentals of PDCA

- When looking to deploy an improvement approach into a business, such as PDCA, you may come across a need to “sell” this
to your leaders or a willing audience.
- That is because, often, projects revolving around the delivery of improvements demand the need for resources and,
sometimes, a budget to be able to be delivered.
- Often, when it comes to selling the need for this approach, the purpose of the approach and the benefits of taking it can
overlap quite extensively.
- Therefore, when thinking through the benefits and purpose of your approach, you can identify the following:

Quick turnaround Easy to train others Tried & tested approach Highly impactful

Can be repeated Reduces risk Decisions based on data No stone unturned

Overview
PDCA

PDCA

- Overview.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Overview
PDCA

- As covered off so far, plan, do, check, act is a highly effective improvement tool which, if deployed correctly, can yield
fantastic results and be deployed on a continuous basis.
- So what actually is plan, do, check, act, what are the key activities associated with each stage and how do you go about
deploying them?
- All of this will be discovered in this section of the course.
- We will also provide handy checklists for each section so you can ensure you have
completed the right activities, at the right time, for the right type of project
– each and every time.

Please remember: In this section of the course, we look at what needs

to be done in the 4 stages of PDCA.
In the following Demonstration section of the course, we will show you
practically how to work through each activity listed.
Plan
PDCA

PDCA

- Overview.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Plan
PDCA

- To kick star the PDCA cycle we have plan.

- With Plan, the first activity you need to conduct is to identify a problem that needs addressing or an opportunity that
needs realizing.
- With PDCA, you can either be fixing something (amending, improving etc.) or finding a way to make something that
isn’t broken deliver better quality, quicker etc.
- You need to define exactly what it is you are seeking to do with your PDCA work in the Plan stage.
- Next, you need to use the information available to you at this early stage to really understand what is currently
happening. What is your problem, what is the impact, why is it occurring etc.?
- What is the opportunity to be realized? How do you know this opportunity exists? What would its impact be?
- Next, you want to generate your ideas. Explore the different ways in which you can address your problem /
opportunity. Discuss as a group what these ideas would entail and screen them as much as you can.
- You could draw up your processes and identify where changes could be deployed. You could draw up storyboards of
how and where opportunities could be realized and their impact.
- Once all ideas are on the table, you can create your Pilot Implementation Plan to detail what needs to be
implemented, when and by whom – focusing on the pilot testing stage to come.
- Finally, plan out your success criteria. Understand where you are today and map out where you want to be tomorrow.
- These criteria will often be quantitative (if possible) so you can clearly mark where you are today and where you want
/ need to be tomorrow.
Plan
PDCA

Activities at Plan stage Complete?

Identify your problem / opportunity

Define exactly what you are going to do with your PDCA activities

Use all current information to truly understand what is happening

Generate all ideas for how to realize what you’re aiming to achieve

Create a Pilot Implementation Plan for those items you want to test

Identify your success criteria and quantify if / where possible

- To complete the Plan phase, you can act relatively quickly.

- Many people complete this stage in a day or 2, or in one workshop.

- The key outputs that come from this stage are / can be:
• A definition one pager or small Project Charter (to be updated with your success criteria).
• A small Project Plan.
• A small Data Collection Plan.
• A Pilot Implementation Plan.
Plan
PDCA

Examples of Plan definitions

Problem

- Process is currently producing outputs that are taking longer to complete month on month.
- Complaints surrounding the quality of our phone case products have been rising consecutively over the past year.
- Agents in our Customer Contact Centre are going to the phones without the correct level of knowledge of our
products and services.
- The HR system that produces our client reports monthly is running at an 80% accuracy rate, which means 1 in 5 of
the reports produced contain incorrect information.

Opportunity

- We are building out a brand new process to deliver good customer service to our largest clients as part of the
Account Management Team and want to test its effectiveness.
- We are looking to launch a new Insurance product for our customers and want to test the impact of this new
product / changed product on our business.
- We want to understand the impact of deploying a new strategy on our internal stakeholders and our clients.
- The needs of students within the school are to be analyzed through this approach to enable us to plan to address
these and identify the best way to deploy our solutions.
Do
PDCA

PDCA

- Overview.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Do
PDCA

- At the Do stage, you want to understand which of the ideas and potential solutions you have identified so far can
and will be taken forward.
- Here we want to conduct testing to understand if a solution is the right one and if not, what needs to be done to
make it the right one OR how to find the right one.
- Firstly, you need to ensure the testing environment is ready for your pilot testing, as established in your Pilot
Implementation Plan, is ready.
- As part of your plan, you would have worked out how big or small your sample size will be, what characteristics you
need to define (i.e. specific geographical location, specific department or team members etc.) You need to ensure
this sample is ready to test and is fully aware of the approach.
- You will also want to deliver a plan that can ensure any testing that does happen does not cause a disruption to the
wider process or operational performance. Here you can put good controls around your test.
- Next, you can conduct the testing, delivering your Pilot Implementation Plan in full, deploying the testing within the
parameters, controls and samples set.
- As you conduct your testing, you will want to keep an eye on its impact and ensure it continues to remain within
scope, within the correct parameters and is on track.
- You will also want to collect the results of the pilot testing and all data that comes from it, as this will be assessed in
the next phase.
- Once you have completed your pilot test, you can wrap the Do section of PDCA up by thanking those who took part
and officially closing out the testing phase and allowing the current state to resume as before.
Do
PDCA

Activities at Do stage Complete?

Work out the logistics of how you are going to deploy the activities

Identify the right controls to protect your LIVE operations whilst testing

Deliver your Pilot Implementation Plan

Update your Pilot Implementation Plan with progress

Collect all data and results from the pilot testing

Officially close the testing phase

- To complete the Do phase, the timings will largely depend on what you are testing and how much
data you need to collect.
- The more data required to really back up the solution, the longer the testing will take.
- For a small-scale project, it can take a few days to a week, depending if you’re looking at the
lifecycle of a whole process or just the outputs from it.

- The key outputs that come from this stage are / can be:
• Pilot Implementation Plan (updated).
• Pilot data.
Do
PDCA

Examples

Parameters for pilot test

- Time: 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday week commencing 15th April.

- The next 3 runs of the process, end to end.
- Geographical location: Our London office operations OR 1 Analyst from each office location.
- Sample size: 10% of Agents to be included (5 individuals).
- 10 products to be quality checked post running through the piloted new process.

Controls to reduce risk

- A live graphic (Control Chart) to show how the process is performing each run.
- Quality checking of other products coming out of the process to be maintained.
- A checklist to ensure all required activities continue on the LIVE processes.
- Checks on other people’s work and on the work done as part of the pilot test to be conducted.
- A participant observation is conducted whereby someone physically watches the pilot test as it happens.
Check
PDCA

PDCA

- Overview.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Check
PDCA

- Now you have completed the main aim of the PDCA methodology, that is piloting your potential solutions, you will
need to analyze what you have produced.
- At this stage, you need to check all of the data produced from your pilot test. This will include:
• What was the outcome?
• Was it in line with what you had hoped / expected?
• Does the data backup your approach?
• Does it indicate you need to change your direction?

- Fundamentally, at this stage, you need to understand whether or not you are in a position to move forward to the 4 th
stage, the Act stage, or if you have to go back to stage 1, the Plan stage.
- If you determine that your approach is the right one, you can move forward to the 4th stage comfortably and
confidently.
- If you are questioning its viability based on the data you are checking, you can either:
• Revisit the same solutions but amend the approach, amending them to make them more viable this time around.
• Go right back to Plan and choose new solutions to potentially take forward.
• Go right back to before Plan and restart the whole process again.

- You’ll need to make sure you are confident that it is the solution that is not the right one at this stage and not the
approach you have taken and the process you have followed to deploy this.
- If you do go back, repeat these stages until you get the data and the outcomes you had hoped for and move forward.
Check
PDCA

Activities at Check stage Complete?

Check all the data to ensure it is all present and ready to be analyzed

Analyze all data produced from the pilot test

Draw your conclusions on what the data is telling you

Feedback on the results of the pilot test to those who need to know

IF needed, go back to the previous stages and redo / choose new solutions

Confirm solutions have worked successfully and move on to the next stage

- This stage can be completed in a fairly short period of time. If you have all data presented and have
set a clear baseline of what you expect the results to be, this should be simple.
- You conduct your analysis and work out whether or not you have met your expected performance
levels and, if so, can move forward very quickly to implement these changes.

- The key outputs that come from this stage are / can be:
• Confidence in the solutions to take forward OR confirmation of a reset.
Check
PDCA

Examples

Feedback on the data analysis

- We had a current baseline of 80% accuracy rate for our data. We were targeting 98% accuracy through the solutions
we were testing. At the end of the testing, we had a 99.5% accuracy rate for all data tested. Therefore, the solutions
have delivered as expected and will be taken forward as our chosen solutions to be deployed.
- We were targeting for the process to produce an average of 10 reports a day once our solutions had been deployed.
At the end of the testing, the system was producing an average of 8, therefore the pilot test indicates the solution
chosen needs to be revisited.

Current process completion time: Targeted process completion time: Achieved process completion time:
200 minutes 100 minutes 140 minutes
Status: Next steps:
FAIL Revisit the ideas discussed in Plan Change the target level and
Stage and identify new ones to test. approach it more incrementally.

Change the parameters around this Cancel this PDCA and go back to the
testing to understand tolerance levels. drawing board completely.
Act
PDCA

PDCA

- Overview.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Act
PDCA

- The Act stage is, effectively, the delivery phase. This is where you deliver in full what you have been testing.
- This is where what you have identified as your chosen solutions are going to go LIVE and move on from being solutions
to actual practice within your process / operations.
- Firstly, you can build out an Implementation Plan. Here you want to build out a plan to reflect what you learned in the
Do phase and the data analyzed in the Check phase.
- What you’re implementing now are not merely potential solutions, they are actual solutions, so you must get this right.
Therefore, you need to build out an Implementation Plan that clearly details what needs doing when, where and how.

- Once the plan is built, you will deploy it in full, but as you are doing so, will need to ask yourself the following:
• What resources do we need to implement the solution in full?
• What training and support is needed instantly and longer term?
• How can we measure and track the performance of the solution today and longer term?

- Once deployed, you then have to start thinking about what additional activities are needed to be completed to
continually improve your changes.
- You can do this by deploying some of the additional solutions identified or keep on the pulse of the performance of
your process / product to see where issues may arise and need addressing.
- Remember, when Act is closed this is not the end of the PDCA cycle. It is just the start, and you now need to continually
improve going forward.
Act
PDCA

Activities at Act stage Complete?

Build out the Implementation Plan

Plan for any additional resources required for this solution

Plan for any training and training documentation required for this solution

Build out the control measures and tracking measures

Deploy the solutions and changes in full

Continually improve the in-scope processes / products going forward

- IF you have confidently identified these solutions are the correct ones based on the data received
during the pilot testing, you should be able to deploy this phase relatively quickly.

- The key outputs that come from this stage are / can be:
• Implementation Plan.
• Resource Plan.
• Training materials.
• Control Plan.
• Recommendations for continuous improvement.
Act
PDCA

Examples

Timeframe for delivery

New process flow delivered Hold training workshop New process goes LIVE

Jan Feb Feb

25th 4th 12th

Control measures
Permanent peer review to check data integrity

Monthly Agent testing to check knowledge

Bot to run missing / incorrect data check

Jan Feb Process given an owner
31st 8th
Audit of training materials quarterly
Training materials produced Test Agents on knowledge
Dashboard reporting on process performance

Customer experience / satisfaction tracking

Scenario
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Scenario
Demonstration

- For this scenario, we are going to go down the route of a company who wants to find a solution and a new way for one of
their products, and therefore they need to test its viability.
- The company are looking to expand their customer base whilst at the same time improving the experience of their current
customers, mainly by offering them something new.

Company: Chapman’s Coffeehouse

Industry: Services

Main product line: Coffee through its 1,000 stores around the UK

PDCA thoughts: 6 months ago, the company followed in the footsteps of its competitors and launched a gift card option for its
customers. This feature enabled people to go into store and grab a gift card to top up and give to a friend or relative. When they
launched this feature, they had expectations around the performance of these gift cards, but such performance has not been seen.

The company needs to: 1) Understand why the gift cards have not performed as expected. 2) Find solutions to increase performance
of gift cards. 3) Identify additional options for the gift cards to increase performance beyond how they are offered today.
Once it was established that this is what was required, a PDCA seemed to be the best approach.
Pre-PDCA work
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Pre-PDCA work
PDCA

- Ahead of any project, including PDCA work, it is always advisable to do some pre-project work. This is done to:
• Set up your project effectively.
• Give you data and insight to set up the trajectory of your project correctly.
• Help you avoid any pitfalls at a later date.

- There are a range of different pre-PDCA activities you can conduct including:
• Understanding what data is available and from where (review your data landscape).
• Analyzing data important to your project.
• Beginning to build out plans you’ll require during your project.
• Research into the market / competitors / potential clients.
• Conducting initial or high-level voice of the customer work (interviews, surveys etc.)
• Scoping out a high-level timeline.
• Running the numbers to understand costs during and post the project.

- For our scenario project, we focused on a number of these areas pre-PDCA work, which we will explore in more detail now.
Pre-PDCA work
PDCA

Research Analysis of feedback

- Research was conducted into the gift card market. - Conducted analysis on feedback from various websites on the
- Research was also conducted into the wider market and gift cards being sold.
competitors who already offered gift cards. - This feedback acted as some free and time-saving voice of the
- From this research we learned the scale of the opportunity customer work – understanding what satisfies.
with gift cards (10% growth annually), the most popular type - It was also an opportunity to understand what annoyed /
of gift card (£20) and most common mode of delivery (email). frustrated people about the process surrounding the giving
- We also explored the innovative ways competitors were and receiving of gift cards.
advertising and selling their gift cards.

Voice of the customer work Initial conversations had

- Had servers in a sample of coffee shops ask random - To pre-empt the work to come, we held a range of
customers what they think of the gift cards. conversations with key stakeholders.
- Feedback was highly positive, with around 4/5 customers - This was to highlight the resource requirements that will be
sampled saying they look good and are desirable. needed and the potential for time disruption.
- We had also been collecting data for some time now from - It was also to discuss potential timeframes, the type of
people who had asked about gift card options. activities to be conducted and impact of the final outputs.
- This was done to ensure people are on the same page from
day one and to reduce the potential for disruption.
Plan
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Plan
Demonstration

Identify the opportunity

After consultation internally, analysis of the wider coffee market, the wider gift voucher market, our customers and through
conversations with a sample of our customers, we would like to launch a gift voucher option. This is an opportunity many in
the market have already realized to great reward, increasing customer loyalty and profitability of their organizations. 6
months ago, we launched the same type of product, but have so far not achieved anything near what was expected in terms
of sales and performance of these gift cards.

The opportunity here is to generate enough insight to understand why sales have not been performing as expected so we can
deliver solutions that will help us to achieve such sales in the short term and set us up for longer term growth.

How are we going to approach this opportunity?

We will take a PDCA approach to this, given our understanding of the market and knowing the demand for such a product
offering is indeed there. We also know other companies within the coffee and wider retail sectors are offering gift cards to
great success. Therefore, the PDCA approach will be used to:
- Understand why we have not see the performance expected upon launch.
- Understand how we can secure that expected performance in the coming months.
- Understand how to continue that growth in gift card sales performance over a longer period of time.

The PDCA approach will ensure we understand the why, how and how to, giving us the answers we need today to deliver
changes tomorrow to ensure the success of the gift cards for the long term.
Plan
Demonstration

Use available data to understand the problem / opportunity

£1.5million £375,000
100,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece) 25,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece)
Expected sales performance (monthly) Current sales performance (monthly)

End of PDCA cycle End of “longer term” period

£1.5million £3million
100,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece) 200,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece)
Targeted sales performance (monthly)
Plan
Demonstration

Generate ideas – potential causes for perceived underperformance of sales

Marketing Technology Planning

No official launch No e-card option Little evidence of a marketing plan

No email communication No e-receipt option Wasn’t in original strategy

No launch event / promo No company app option Project sales figures had little basis

No prior launch activities Wasn’t “pushed” in team meetings

Gift card sales are 75%

Social media posts too vague
below what was expected
upon launch 6 months
Attractive design of card Involves giving an email No mention on website ago

Plastic could be off-putting Name required Cards not in front of pay station

Lack of “top-up” ability Having to ask for one No in-store signage

No USP compared to others Redeeming uncertain balance

Product Process Placement

Plan
Demonstration

Choose your causes to explore

- From the Fishbone Diagram exercise, we identified a range of different potential reasons as to why the performance
of the gift cards had not been what was expected.
- Given the fact that there were a range of different potential causes, to generate solutions we need to choose those
we believe have had the biggest impact on our problem.
- Collectively, as a team, we have identified that the two biggest causes of the lack of sales performance of the gift
cards are:

1) Marketing of the gift cards has been poor.

2) Visibility of the gift cards in-store not effective.

- PDCA will now continue by looking for solutions to these two causes specifically.
- The other potential causes have been recorded and stored for future PDCA work to be conducted (as this is a
continuous effort).
- To generate the potential solutions for these causes, we are going to use an Affinity Diagram.
Plan
Demonstration

Generate ideas – solutions to the poor marketing cause

Email campaign Include gift Run a social Enquire about Run a rewards
to all customer cards into all media campaign e-gift card campaign with
emails marketing focused on gift options for gift cards at its
strategies cards feedback heart

Run an ad Front page of Run a Highlight the All

campaign website promotional in USP of these promotional
(Google, mention for 60 store & online cards on cups material to
Instagram etc.) days for gift cards include GCs

- The solutions we collectively agreed to take forward and test as part of the Do phase were:

1) Email campaign to all customer emails.

2) Run a social media campaign focused on gift cards.
Plan
Demonstration

Generate ideas – solutions to the location of the gift cards in-store

Move the gift Direct Have signage Have a specific Place the gift
cards to pay attention to to indicate the gift card stand cards next to
station the gift cards gift cards somewhere the door

In-store offers A gift card Uniforms to Flyers placed Gift cards

for those that discount as an include on tables mentioned in
purchase a gift upsell mention of gift highlighting menus
card card options gift cards

- The solutions we collectively agreed to take forward and test as part of the Do phase were:

1) Move the gift cards to pay station.

2) Gift cards mentioned in menus.
Plan
Demonstration

Pilot Implementation Plan

Solution How? Sample Schedule Success criteria Owner Complete

Design the campaign collectively. None. The campaign is

Run a social media Build in specific aims & content around more of a supporting Carly White
March 1st - activity to run over the
campaign focused on gift selling the specific USP of our gift cards. All H.O. Social Media
March 28th pilot period to help collate
cards Run a new story and post each day for 28
feedback and engagement.
days, encouraging interaction.

Conduct an email blast to all current

Email campaign to all subscribers to company comms.
All March 8th 10,000 reference Sifat Maher
customers emails Include mention of the gift cards and this
codes activated H.O. Comms
comms piece in the monthly newsletter.
Both include a code to reference.
Provide new stands for gift cards. Edinburgh West
Stands to include promotional messaging. Liverpool St.
Move the gift cards to Nottingham March 15th Sales of gift cards rise Specific branch
Stands to be under/next to pay station. x4
the pay station Liverpool Lime St. Team Lead
Other items to be moved to reduce clutter.
Newcastle Uni
Belfast Dock
Have any current menus reprinted. 1 in 5 of people asking
Carnaby Street
Gift cards mentioned in Add the gift card mentions into the virtual for gift cards who Specific branch
Oxford Circus March 22nd
menus menus behind the pay station. reference they “saw it Team Lead
Cardiff Central
Add mentions to other in-house materials. in the menu”
Blackpool

- As the final stage of the Plan phase is to identify your success criteria, the Pilot Implementation Plan enables you to do this. These 4 are how you are going to measure the success
of your chosen solutions and the way you seek to deploy them.
Do
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Do
Demonstration

Deliver the Pilot Implementation Plan – Social media campaign Deliver the Pilot Implementation Plan – Email blast campaign

- The Marketing Team got together with the PDCA Project - The Comms Team got together with the PDCA Project Team to
Team to discuss the plan, the aims and the reasoning. discuss the plan, the aims and the reasoning.
- They then designed a campaign that would highlight: - They then designed a campaign that would highlight:
• The gift card process. • The availability of the gift cards.
• The USP of their specific gift cards. • The process of how and where to find them.
• “What’s next” for the gift cards. • The USP of their gift card offering.

- The campaign was to target specific groups and individuals - The campaign was to target all customers who had previously
over each of the days, and then be more collective. provided their emails before, so the language remained
- Messaging around how these are the perfect birthday / generic, inclusive and collective.
holiday gift for the coffee connoisseur were also highlighted. - The messaging really stressed the value of our gift cards.

Logistics Logistics

- The messaging was put out across all social media channels. - The email was to be sent when other email and social media
- The messaging differed per channel, knowing different traffic would be lower, so not to clutter the messaging.
audiences follow different channels. - The email also contained, front and centre a redemption code
- They built posts that were interactive and enabled which customers could bring into the store and get a discount
engagement with customers and asked for feedback as a way on a coffee if they purchased the gift card.
of collective voice of the customer data also.
Do
Demonstration

Deliver the Pilot Implementation Plan – Move gift cards Deliver the Pilot Implementation Plan – Gift cards on menus

- The in-scope branch teams were briefed on the project, the - The in-scope branch teams were briefed on the project, the
aims and the purpose to get their buy in and support. aims and the purpose to get their buy in and support.
- As well as moving the gift cards front and centre, they also: - We identified the reasoning behind adding the gift card to
• Decorated the area. menus and what we hoped the impact would be.
• Moved other items to reduce clutter around them. - We asked them to ensure:
• Stated they would also highlight the gift cards to customers. • All physical and virtual menus were updated.
• The gift card point was clear and well decorated.
- We also asked the staff of the in-scope branches to keep an
eye on the customers to see if they “browsed” the gift cards, - We needed to ensure people’s eyes caught this, especially in
if they looked at them with interest etc. those branches which had not moved their stands.

Logistics Logistics

- Logistically, it was all about gently pushing the customer to - Updating the virtual screens was as simple as informing central
engage with the gift cards, whether looking, touching or office of the designs needed and to update those screens
purchasing them. centrally.
- “We want your feedback” signs were also posted next to the - Updating the physical menus saw the teams updating them in-
stands to encourage people who purchase / have purchased store and printing these out, distributing them to where they
to scan a barcode and leave their feedback easily. need to be.
Do
Demonstration

Controls to deploy

- As well as simply deploying the Pilot Implementation Plan, we also needed to deploy controls to ensure that the testing
worked, worked well and would not impact the operations going on around them.
- For this project, the controls required were not too extensive or invasive, as they didn’t involve industries such as
Manufacturing or Production which could be impacted from a health and safety perspective or services / processes that,
if disrupted, could lead to significant problems.

Change Risk Control measure In place?

Moving gift cards to pay station Sales of items that once sit there impacted Move items to new stand near entrance

Moving gift cards to pay station Increase in time taken to “top up” the cards Have cards “topped up” ready to go

Moving gift cards to pay station Increase in “thefts” of pre-topped up cards Have these cards stored under counter

Email campaign People see this as “spam” and unsubscribe “Sell” the value, including with the code

Email campaign People see this as “spam” and unsubscribe Title of email: “We aren’t spam, we are a gift”

Mention gift cards on menus Messaging gets lost on a “cluttered” menu Remove items from the menu to free up space

- With controls identified, we could ensure as we delivered the PDCA work, these controls would be kept in mind, in
place and tracked throughout.
Do
Demonstration

Close out the Do phase

- The pilot test ran, with the Pilot Implementation Plan deployed in full.
- As the pilot ran, we collected all relevant data:

• Sales data.
• Conversations with those purchasing.
• Conversations with those “browsing” but not purchasing.
• Server feedback on “observations and interactions”.
• Redemptions of email codes.
• Interaction on social media and more.

- All data was then stored for analysis.

- As the pilot ran we monitored controls and ensured the controlled environment was maintained throughout.
- Other than that, we had to allow the pilot to go ahead undisturbed as you want to try and avoid any bias, any other
influences or anything that could disrupt or impact the outputs and results of the pilot.

- Once complete, we then let those involved know that the pilot was closed and to return to normal operations, pending
feedback and analysis of the data.
Check
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Check
PDCA

Analyze data and results of the pilot test

- To analyze the data, firstly we wanted to understand – “have we achieved our success criteria?”
- That is because we need to understand with clear conviction that the solutions we had been piloting were indeed the
correct ones, and we needed to show they were to others (so a clear achievement of the success criteria was needed).

10,000 reference codes activated Sales of gift cards rise x4 1 in 5 reference “menu” when purchasing

Total number of reference codes Sales of gift cards rose x8, from an Less than 1 in 10 people quoted
activated was 4,240. average of 25 to 200. menu when purchasing a gift card.

Although there was good engagement It was evidently clear from this early It also appeared that people mentioned
with those who activated, the stage that putting the gift cards front it after seeing the physical menus and
engagement level was less than half and centre of the pay station had had a not the big menu behind the server –
anticipated. big impact of their performance so far. indicating people were seeing these on
menus when “browsing” and sat down.
Check
PDCA

Analyze data and results of the pilot test

- Outside of the success criteria, we had identified that we wanted to collect and analyze data from additional sources.
- Although there were no strict criteria set around these, we did garner some fascinating insights from these to be used in
future iterations of the PDCA cycle.

Conversations with customers Observations of the in-store staff Interactions on social media

In the conversations had, we discovered: In the observations had, we discovered: In the interactions had, we discovered:

• There was high demand for gift cards, • The majority of people who picked up a gift • Feedback on the gift cards was very
especially from repeat customers. card ended up purchasing it. positive.
• People had not been asking about gift • Having the gift cards in front of the pay • There was a general thought that
cards because they couldn’t see them. station became a talking point. Chapman’s Coffeehouse did not offer them.
• There was a popular perception that • People were more likely to see the • There was a lot of demand for an online /
Chapman’s Coffeehouse did not do them. “moved” items and go to them. app version of the gift cards.
• Customers wanted gift cards throughout • Very few people spotted or interacted with • Those in-scope branch customers had
the year, not just holidays or birthdays. the “menu” gift card mention. noticed the gift cards front and centre.
• People wanted choice – choice of how • The most common amount for a gift card • Those posts relating to the in-scope
much and how (in-store, online etc.) was £20, up from £15 previously. branches were the most popular.
Check
PDCA

Draw conclusions & feed back

- Once all data has been analyzed, feedback deep dived and success criteria success rates agreed, you can draw your
conclusions and feedback to wider stakeholders and the business.
- With this, you need to keep in mind who your audience is and ensure the way you deliver the information is done so in a
way which is easy for them to digest.
- This information could also be used to make important decisions OR you will use it to sell the decisions you are making (if
you have that ability). We drew out conclusions and presented back collectively.

The findings we have reported back so far are that we have seen an x8 increase in sales
performance of the gift cards through the moving of them & other activities.
£375,000
25,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece) We were targeting a x4 increase in sales to get us from £375,000 to £1.5million.
Current sales performance (monthly) If we can match the x8 increase across all stores (taking into consideration differences in footfall,
geographical location, demographics etc.) we could see that figure actually hit £3million. This
would mean we hit the long-term target now, through the work we have done so far.

We have also seen an increase in the average price of the gift card selling from £15 per gift card to
£1.5million
100,000 gift cards (average £15 a piece) £20 per gift card. This would increase further how much revenue gift cards would bring in above
Targeted sales performance (monthly) target. This would give us the scope to invest more into gift cards or spend more of our PDCA
cycles in the future focusing on quality, process or offerings.

All in all, the indications are that the solutions pursued so far will have a significant positive impact
on the organization.
Check
PDCA

Findings from the PDCA project (current cycle)

Overall conclusion What didn’t land so well and why?

The project has revealed that the moving of gift cards to the front of • The inclusion of gift cards on menus. It appeared as though the
the store, in front of the pay station, has had by far the biggest messaging was confused, the menus were too crowded still and
impact on sales and performance. With this move, interactions the USP of the gift cards were not present.
increased substantially, as did sales. • The provision of codes via email did not seem to offer a good
enough deal for people to want to redeem.
Whilst the other solutions pursued so far have helped increase • No real success criteria was set around the social media
awareness and engagement and have provided us with great insight campaign, so even if some posts did impact sales performance,
and information useful for future work, they have not had the we can’t truly know this time around.
material impact on sales / performance as had been hoped.

Decisions made Areas to explore during next PDCA

This project has indicated: This project has indicated:

• Gift cards need to be moved to the pay station area in all stores. • The process surrounding the purchasing and activating of the gift
• The gift card mention on the menus does not need to happen. cards needs looking into (streamline and improve).
• Social media campaigns should continue, sporadically, mainly • An online / app / electronic gift card option is highly in demand.
with the aim of increasing engagement and awareness. • The planning around launching of new products & the evolution of
• Email campaigns should be targeted at holiday times and during the gift card will need addressing.
wider campaigns.
Act
Demonstration

Demonstration

- Scenario.
- Pre-PDCA work.
- Plan.
- Do.
- Check.
- Act.
Act
Demonstration

Implementation of solutions – Implementation Plan

- Once you have completed your analysis, feedback and have made your decisions, you need to work out a plan for how
you are going to implement your solutions in full.
- This is where your pilot testing helps – you can now simply build on the approach you took with that.
- The purpose of the Implementation Plan is to ensure everyone is aware of what is being implemented and when. It is to
ensure the timeframes identified are adhered to and the right approach is delivered for each solution.
- To build your Implementation Plan:
1) List out your chosen solutions on a grid.
2) Identify how you are going to implement this. You need to state clearly the action or course of action that will be taken
to do this. Be as detailed as you need to be.
3) State the timeframe in which the solution will be implemented. For quick wins this may be a day, for others it may be a
few weeks depending on the time needed to adjust to the change.
4) Identify who is going to own the implementation. Even if it is not this person personally deploying it, they will be
responsible for ensuring it does in fact get deployed as it should.
5) If there is a cost involved, state it. This is important from a budgetary control perspective. You will need to ensure a
smooth implementation to stop costs from spiralling.
6) Once done, mark the activity as complete and let all key stakeholders know this has been finished and is LIVE.

- The Implementation Plan is only complete when ALL items are marked as finished.
Act
Demonstration

Solution How? Start End Owner of task Cost Complete?

• Have a group call with all Managers / Leads March 1st March 1st £0
Project Manager
of the stores to understand what
happened in the pilot testing stores.

• Build out individual plans for each of the March 2nd March 8th Branch Manager £0
stores rolling this out.

• Approve all plans at central level. March 15th March 15th Managing Director £0

Move gift cards to the pay • Source any new shelving or storage for
March 16th March 31st Procurement Lead £100,000
station area of the coffee what is being moved etc.
shop in ALL stores
• Arrange for the moving and installation of
April 1st April 5th Facilities Lead £20,000
the new units.

• Confirm when all work has been April 6th May 15th £0
Branch Manager
completed.

• Set up the tracking of sales and

conversations to ensure performance is May 15th May 31st Branch Manager £0
matched across all units.

• Set up regular call to discuss performance June 1st June 1st Project Manager £0
and discrepancies seen.
Act
Demonstration

Controls to deploy

- At the Do phase, we built out the controls we wanted to instil in our piloted solutions. This was to ensure any changes
landed as well as possible and there was no impact on the wider business, negatively.
- The same needs to be done at the Act stage, where we want to understand the controls to be deployed to ensure the
solutions that are now LIVE will last the test of time.
- To do so, we can recycle some of the controls previously identified whilst also adding new ones.

Change Risk Control measure In place?

Moving gift cards to pay station Sales of items that once sit there impacted Move items to new stand near entrance

Moving gift cards to pay station Increase in time taken to “top up” the cards Have cards “topped up” ready to go

Moving gift cards to pay station Increase in “thefts” of pre-topped up cards Have these cards stored under counter

Moving gift cards to pay station Impact of change becomes forgotten Set up tracking of performance dashboard
Recycle equipment from other sites where
Moving gift cards to pay station Increased cost of equipment & repair
possible and as below, shift to digital cards
Moving gift cards to pay station Increased cost of gift card creation Move to a digital version & advertise here

- With controls identified, we could ensure as we delivered the PDCA work we kept these in mind and ensured they
continued to be in place and be impactful.
Act
Demonstration

Training & additional resource requirements

- In terms of training, it was identified that the individual branches would need to receive the same training, universally, to
ensure if staff moved around branches, they would understand the process around gift cards.
- The training that was identified as required included:
• The process around activating gift cards / adding a balance.
• Best practice around engaging with customers on gift cards.
• How to sell and upsell the gift cards to new customers.
- These activities, plus others, needed training guidance documents to be created, and a deadline of 2 weeks to build out
these documents and set out best practice was set by the Project Manager – to be stored centrally.

- In terms of additional resources, it was deemed that some support would be required installing the new stands and
equipment in those branches that required it.
- The cost of this labour was included in the costs as laid out in the Implementation Plan.
- As this was a physical shift of equipment and the layout of the store, and there was no increase in workloads
permanently, no additional resources requirements needed to be sourced.

- It is important to ensure you look into these aspects because of some projects, a lot of new resource, spending or
training could be required, so it is best to be up front about it now.
Act
Demonstration

Close out and Continuous Improvement

- Once all of your changes have been deployed, it is time to stop and take stock.
- You need to check all changes have been deployed correctly, all controls are in place, tracking of performance dashboards
are LIVE, documentation are up to date etc.
- At this stage, you want to celebrate a job well done and feedback progress to wider stakeholders and the business.

- For our project, we then moved on to the continuous improvement part of Act. To do this, we:

Revisited our Fishbone Diagram of potential causes Revisited our Control Plan from “Act”

• We picked out some of the potential causes left over to • We wanted to test and see if the controls and solutions
start planning for and testing. deployed thus far were working as expected.
• This included the technology wing, looking at having • We also wanted to expand on some of the controls
virtual / digital gift cards. mentioned around digital gift cards.
• We also sought to “explore” an app. • From this analysis, we began our next PDCA cycle.
Review of key learnings
Close out

Close out

- Review of key learnings.

- Hints & tips.
- Thank you.
Review of key learnings
Close out

- Change within business is very subjective. It depends on the organization, the industry, the size, the wants and needs, the
products and services being produced, the teams involved, the mindset. Knowing this helps to frame your change journey
successfully.
- Continuous Improvement within business is something worth pursuing because of its potential to impact your organization
on a grand scale. Whether small incremental projects or wide scale programmes, continually improving your processes,
products, teams and services can yield huge benefits in terms of savings, quality and performance.
- PDCA – Plan, Do, Check, Act – is built from the continuous improvement framework. With this approach you need to identify
an issue / opportunity, identify potential solutions, pilot test these and deploy the chosen solutions.
- With Plan, the key aspects are: Identify your problem / opportunity, define your approach, understand the current situation,
generate ideas, create a Pilot Implementation Plan and identify your success criteria.
- With Do, the key aspects are: Deliver your Pilot Implementation Plan, work out the logistics of delivery, identify your Pilot
controls, keep your plan updated at all times, run your pilot test and collect all data and findings along the way.
- With Check, the key aspects are: Review all data collected and get it into a state ready to analyze, analyze all data, draw your
conclusions, feedback on the results to those who need to know, go back and redo previous steps (if the pilot has not
delivered the expected results), confirm solutions have worked successfully and move on.
- With Act, they key aspects are: Build out your Implementation plan, plan for additional resources or training needs, build out
your solution control measures, deploy all changes in full and continually improve going forward.
- There are a range of documents you will use at times, but not every time. These include Project Plan, Resource Plan, Control
Plan, Implementation Plan, Pilot Implementation Plan etc.
Hints & tips
Close out

Close out

- Review of key learnings.

- Hints & tips.
- Thank you.
Hints & tips
Close out

Train the wider team on PDCA Keep the projects small to medium Ensure all documentation is correct
This will increase the knowledge and Large scale, multi-departmental / cross Try and ensure all documentation is correct
understanding of those in your own project AND organizational projects could require a wealth of and up to date at all times. Leaders will want
spread the number of PDCA possible at any one solutions, and that approach may not fit well into to see current state at any time and individuals
time. the PDCA model. need to be on the same page at all times.

Always feedback the results Shift the mindset Be honest about failures
As a great and non-invasive way to get buy in to Successful delivery of PDCA, training it out and If any of the solutions you have pursued as part of
the approach, always feedback the positive attaching it to people's performance goals is just the pilot testing and PDCA cycle haven’t worked,
outcomes of the work done. This will help embed the start of shifting the mindset. You need to find that is fine. Be honest, go back and learn from
the PDCA approach into your business. a way to embed it into the culture forever. them, fixing the mistakes.
Thank you
Close out

Close out

- Review of key learnings.

- Hints & tips.
- Thank you.
Plan, Do, Check, Act