The mother of (most) frameworks

Topic

Planning

Type

Quick take

I was talking with my fellow PM, Akis Stamatiou and he told me that when it comes to frameworks, you simply can’t escape the Demming’s cycle, because it is the foundation behind every popular optimization framework.

So here is the Demming’s cycle:

Sometimes it called PDCA cycle or Shewart’s cycle.

I’m a big fan of systems & frameworks. I like them because it’s the best way to scale a process. I use a lot of frameworks in the job, mostly for product discovery and planning. Moreover, the book I write contains 2 frameworks:

Team scale & utilization framework (Nero),
Performance optimization (Growth engine).

Almost, all continuous optimization frameworks I know are based on this simple 4-step process. Thinking about it again, it is reasonable. The mantra of all those frameworks is that they are “simple to understand, but difficult to implement”.

Why this information is important?

Study carefully the PDCA cycle and you’ll understand most of the frameworks that are being used today.
Try to modify it by adding or changing steps in the existing process, to create your own that will help you solve your problems.

Relevant posts:

[Notes] PM Habits Seminar: Get Shit Done by Shreyas Doshi