What the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle Taught Me About Quality Improvement and Why It Works Brilliantly in Business

If you’ve ever worked in healthcare, you’ve probably come across the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle one of the most reputable and practical frameworks for quality improvement.

I used it countless times during my nursing and leadership career to improve patient care, test new ideas safely, and guide my teams through change.

But here’s the thing most people miss:

👉🏾 PDSA isn’t just for healthcare. It’s a powerful tool for business too.

What Is PDSA?

The PDSA cycle is a four-step framework for testing and learning from change:

Plan: Identify the goal, make a plan, decide what you’ll measure.
Do: Run a small-scale test.
Study: Analyse the results what worked, what didn’t?
Act: Decide what to tweak, scale, or scrap. Then, repeat.

It’s a simple but incredibly effective. Instead of going all in on a new idea or strategy, you’re running low risk experiments with built-in reflection and learning.

How to Use PDSA in Business

Here are the ways you could use the PDSA framework to shape your business:

Testing new digital products
Improving client onboarding process
Trialling content formats or offers
Deciding what to include in workshops

The key is to start small, learn fast, and adapt.

Just like I did when running improvement projects in the NHS.

Why It Works

✅ Evidence-based – You’re making decisions based on data, not vibes.

✅ Flexible – You can apply it to anything: clinical audits, marketing strategies, team processes.

✅ Empowering – It gives you and your team permission to test, learn, and grow without fear of failure.

Whether you’re leading a team, launching a service, or building a consultancy post career, this is one framework you’ll want in your toolkit