Penvale Dental wait time improvement
PDCA cycle slide with one action and one date per stage
A PDCA cycle slide shows one turn of plan, do, check and act with a concrete action and a date at each stage, so the improvement can be tracked rather than admired. This one follows Penvale Dental, a fictional clinic cutting the average wait past appointment time from 19 to 8 minutes.
What is on the slide
- Title
- PDCA, Penvale Dental Waits. Goal: cut the average wait past appointment time from 19 to 8 minutes by 30 June 2027.
- Plan
- Log arrival and chair times for every patient, 1 to 26 February 2027.
- Do
- Add a 10 minute buffer after every root canal from Monday 8 March.
- Check
- Compare April waits with February on 30 April. Target: under 12 minutes.
- Act
- Make the buffer standard in all three chairs from 17 May, then loop again.
When this is the right slide
Choose this slide when a team is testing one change against a baselined measure and needs to show the four stages of the loop with one action and one date at each.
What to swap it for
Process: Sprint Cycle Pinwheel. Swap to the sprint cycle pinwheel when the work runs in fixed length delivery sprints rather than as a test of one change against a measure.
What this slide shows
A title reads PDCA, Penvale Dental Waits, with a framing line: goal, cut the average wait past appointment time from 19 to 8 minutes by 30 June 2027. On the left, four circles form a clockwise loop around the words Wait time: Plan at the top, Do on the right, Check at the bottom and Act on the left, joined by arrows. On the right, under the label One action and one date per stage, four numbered rows carry the detail. Plan: log arrival and chair times for every patient, 1 to 26 February 2027. Do: add a 10 minute buffer after every root canal from Monday 8 March. Check: compare April waits with February on 30 April, with a target of under 12 minutes. Act: make the buffer standard in all three chairs from 17 May, then loop again. The dates run in order, and each falls on a working day.
When this is the right slide
Use it in a quality improvement meeting, a clinical governance report, an operations review or a lean training session, whenever a team is testing a change and needs to show the method alongside the dates. It suits health services, manufacturing and service operations where a measure can be baselined and rechecked. It is the wrong slide for a project with a single fixed delivery date and no testing, which is a milestone plan. It is also the wrong slide for agile delivery work organised in fixed length sprints, where a sprint cycle layout shows the cadence and the ceremonies better than a four stage improvement loop does.
How to adapt it
First, write the goal with its baseline, its target and its deadline in the framing line, because every stage is judged against it. Second, give each stage exactly one action and one date. If a stage needs several actions, the cycle is too large and should be split into smaller tests. Third, set the check target before the do stage starts and write it on the slide. For a different setting, the measure changes but the discipline stays: a warehouse might baseline pick errors, add a scan step, check the next month's error rate and roll the scan out to every bay. Keep a running table of past cycles in the appendix with their results, so that the next slide in the series can show the trend from cycle to cycle rather than restating the method each time. A team that runs several loops a year will find that table more persuasive than any single cycle slide. Keep the circle labels to a single word, and let the sidebar carry the actions, because the loop is read in a second while the rows are read slowly, one date at a time.
What makes this slide work
Every stage has a date
1 to 26 February, Monday 8 March, 30 April, 17 May. The sidebar gives each stage one action and one date, so the loop becomes a schedule. A PDCA slide that names the stages without dates describes a philosophy; this one describes a commitment, and the team can be asked at any point which stage they are in.
The check has a target set in advance
Compare April waits with February on 30 April, target under 12 minutes. The threshold for success is on the slide before the result is known, which stops the team from deciding afterwards that any improvement counts. The final goal of 8 minutes by 30 June is in the framing line, so this cycle is visibly one step toward it.
Act closes the loop and restarts it
Make the buffer standard in all three chairs from 17 May, then loop again. The last stage turns a test into practice and points to the next cycle. Many improvement projects run plan, do and check, then stall; writing the act decision and the restart onto the slide makes the stall visible if it happens.
Questions people ask
How many PDCA cycles should one slide show?
One. The slide is a record of a single turn of the loop with its own dates. If the project has run three cycles, show the current one here and put the earlier cycles in a table with their results. Drawing several loops on one canvas makes it impossible to see which action belongs to which test.
What should the check stage measure?
The same measure the plan stage baselined, over a comparable period. Penvale baselined February waits and checks April waits, both full months of normal bookings. Checking a different measure, or a holiday week, makes the result meaningless. Write the target for the check, here under 12 minutes, before the do stage starts, so the result cannot be reinterpreted afterwards.
Is PDCA the same as PDSA?
They describe the same loop. PDSA replaces check with study to stress learning from the result rather than only checking it against the target. Many health services use PDSA because of guidance from improvement bodies. Use whichever word your organisation already uses, and keep it consistent across slides, reports and templates.
When should a PDCA slide be split into two?
When the check result needs a chart. A run chart of daily waits across February, March and April shows the effect of the buffer far better than a sentence, and it deserves its own slide. Keep the cycle as the plan of record and put the evidence next to it, so the room can see both the method and the outcome.
How long should one cycle take?
Long enough to collect a fair sample, short enough to keep momentum. For clinic waits, a month of data per stage is reasonable, which gives a cycle of about four months. Small tests in a single chair could run in two weeks. Put the dates on the slide either way, because a cycle without dates rarely closes.
How should a PDCA cycle slide be presented?
Start with the goal in the framing line, then read the four dates in order, because the timeline is what the team will be held to. Spend the most time on act: deciding to make the change standard, or to abandon it, is the step most projects skip. Finish by saying what the next cycle will test.
Build your own in about a minute
The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.
Make one like thisOther slide examples
Two step cycle slide for the smallest feedback loop
A two step cycle slide shows the smallest loop there is, two actions where each one feeds the other, so a team can see that the work never finishes and why that is the point. This one maps the weekly feedback loop at Saltmere Tutoring, a fictional tutoring business: collect on Friday, improve on Monday.
Concentric circles slide with the patient at the core
A concentric circles slide places the most important thing at the centre and arranges everything else in rings by how close it sits to that core. This one plans home care at Haverleigh Care, a fictional provider, outward from the patient through family, carers, clinicians and community.
McKinsey 7S slide with the current state in every cell
A McKinsey 7S slide checks whether an organisation's seven internal elements fit together, with shared values at the centre binding the other six. This one records where Elderbrook Shire Council, a fictional local government, stands before its 2027 restructure, one line per element.
Want the steps in the builder? Read Add charts, maps and diagrams to slides, then Change your presentation's theme, fonts and colours. For everything this generator can do, see the slide maker.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .