120 ◾ A Factory of One
It is the tool by which real improvement is made because it
removes the “gut feel” from the evaluation and replaces it with
a controlled experiment and facts.
Bob Emiliani, a professor at Central Connecticut State
University, has used PDCA over the past 13 years to improve
the design and delivery of his classes. Bob hypothesized that
one of the drivers for the high “defect” rates (i.e., bad grades)
was the standard practice in college of giving students only two
exams during the semester—midterms and finals. He thought
that by giving the students smaller batches of information and
testing them on it more frequently (plan), he could improve
their mastery of the material. He tried that during one semes-
ter (do); compar ...