pdsa

The PDSA cycle is a core 21st century skill

What are the skills we need nowadays? Have they changed from what was needed before? The Assessment and Teaching of 21^st Century Skills research program, headquartered at the University of Melbourne, strives to provide answers to these questions.

They have identified multiple skills that are crucial to life in the 21^st century, and one of particular interest is what they call collaborative problem-solving (CPS), which comprises both social and cognitive processing skills. This social nature of problem-solving is the aspect that is considered to be new.

However, if we take a deeper look at the applications of the PDSA cycle, we can easily notice how problem-solving has been social already before, and that these existing methods may also have more to contribute to the class room.

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How Lean is the Lean Startup?

What does this Lean Startup thing have to do with Lean? What can a startup learn from an established giant like Toyota, or vice versa? Where is my value-stream map, I need a value-stream map, right? The ground between established Lean practice and the Lean Startup movement is full of confusion, but things are far from hopeless – it is possible to form a relatively clear picture of this whole, and that is what this post is all about.

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Lean Startup’s Build-Measure-Learn loop and the PDSA cycle

In his book, The Lean Startup, Eric Ries argues for ways to expand Lean thinking into the realm of startups, into the realm of huge uncertainty.

At the core of his model lies the Build-Measure-Learn loop, which is the key to genuine experimentation and validated learning through working with customers. But what is the relationship between the Build-Measure-Learn loop and the old Lean stalwart, the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust cycle?

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