Product Learning Series

Learn in cycles. Move in a line.

This series contains nine field guides plus a reusable PDSA worksheet. The guides are not waterfall phases. Use them as lenses that the team returns to as the product moves forward.

Series identity. Learn in cycles. Move in a line. The product keeps moving forward, while understanding improves through repeated PDSA learning loops.

Recommended Starting Path

1. Start with Product Development as Learning to align on philosophy and lineage.
2. Use Product Learning to name the cycle question.
3. Choose the next guide based on the uncertainty in front of the team.
4. Capture the cycle in the PDSA Learning Cycle Worksheet.

Intellectual Lineage

Direct lineage: Shewhart to Deming to PDSA as a learning and improvement loop.

Complementary quality thinkers: Juran, Ishikawa, Feigenbaum, Taguchi, and Crosby.

Adjacent systems and product thinkers: Ackoff, Drucker, Ries, and Blank.

Sources

• The W. Edwards Deming Institute, PDSA Cycle
• The W. Edwards Deming Institute, Timeline
• ASQ, Guru Guide
• ASQ, History of Quality
• ASQ, Seven Basic Quality Tools
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement, PDSA Worksheet
• OpenLearn, Managing complexity: a systems approach, section on Ackoff and messes
• Knowledge at Wharton, Eric Ries on The Lean Startup
• Elsevier, Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management

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