ITIL-FOUNDATION · Question #418
How many times should each stage of the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle be visited?
The correct answer is D. The entire cycle should be repeated multiple times to implement Continual Improvement. The PDCA cycle is a continual improvement model where all four stages are repeated iteratively, not visited just once.
Question
How many times should each stage of the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle be visited?
Options
- AEach stage should be carried out once in the order Plan-Do-Check-Act
- BThere should be a single Plan,then the Do-Check-Act cycle should be repeated multiple times to
- CThere should be a single Plan and Do,then Check and Act should be carried out multiple times to
- DThe entire cycle should be repeated multiple times to implement Continual Improvement
How the community answered
(41 responses)- A2% (1)
- B2% (1)
- D95% (39)
Why each option
The PDCA cycle is a continual improvement model where all four stages are repeated iteratively, not visited just once.
Visiting each stage exactly once treats PDCA as a linear project rather than a repeating improvement cycle, which contradicts its fundamental purpose.
Fixing Plan to a single pass prevents the cycle from incorporating new information or changing business requirements into future improvement iterations.
Repeating only Check and Act while keeping Plan and Do static means improvement actions can never be re-planned based on new knowledge gained from prior cycles.
The purpose of the PDCA cycle in ITIL Continual Service Improvement is to drive ongoing improvement by repeating all four stages - Plan, Do, Check, Act - in successive loops. Each completed cycle feeds lessons learned back into the next Plan stage, allowing targets and approaches to be refined progressively. Limiting any stage to a single pass would convert a continuous improvement engine into a one-time project.
Concept tested: PDCA cycle iteration for continual improvement
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