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What is the PDCA Cycle?

The PDCA Cycle repeats four steps — Plan → Do → Check → Act — to achieve continuous improvement.

The key isn’t just completing four steps; it’s the repetition as a cycle. Rather than stopping after one loop, the insights from Act feed into the next Plan. The more cycles you complete, the sharper your results become.

Where this works well

• When you want to keep improving something over time, not just run through a plan once
• When you want reflection to end in a concrete next step, not just a vague resolution
• When a team wants to share a common rhythm for revisiting and improving a process

How to build it in ThinkTray

Step 1: Arrange four cards in a circle

Use the Card tool (R) to place four cards in a clockwise layout.

      [Plan]
[Act]        [Do]
      [Check]

Write what each phase involves directly on its card.

Plan — examples:

• Define the goal and success criteria
• Decide the approach and steps
• Set a schedule

Do — examples:

• Execute according to the plan
• Note anything you notice along the way

Check — examples:

• Compare results against the goal
• Identify what worked and what didn’t

Act — examples:

• Identify the root cause of problems
• Decide what to change in the next cycle

Step 2: Connect with circular arrows

Use the Line tool (L) to draw arrows in the order Plan → Do → Check → Act → Plan.

• Drag from the edge of each card to connect it to the next
• Don’t forget the arrow from Act back to Plan — that return is the whole point of a “cycle”

Step 3: Add detail cards (advanced)

Attach additional cards near each phase card with more specific information.

• Around the Plan card: “Goal: increase monthly sales by 10%” / “Approach: post on social media 3× per week”
• Around the Check card: “Result: +5%” / “Cause: posts weren’t reaching our audience”

Pairing ThinkTray with text files

Use the ThinkTray diagram to see the cycle structure and plan at a glance. For actual execution logs, notes, and retrospectives, a .txt file in the same folder works well.

Tips

• Start with a small cycle — Setting too large a goal means one loop takes too long. Start with something you can complete in a week to a month.
• Be honest in Check — Even a bad result is a learning. Write the facts without excuses.
• Don’t neglect Act — “Try harder next time” isn’t Act. Deciding specifically what to change is.
• Combine with KPT — Using KPT retrospective during the Check → Act phase helps you dig deeper into what went wrong.

The PDCA Cycle was conceived by Walter Shewhart and popularized by W. Edwards Deming as a quality management method. It is also called the Deming Cycle. Wikipedia