Improvement Leadership

Improvement Methodology

Simple

One problem a lot of organizations face when trying to create a culture of continuous improvement is that they over engineer everything. What does that look like? You might be making your improvement methodology too complicated if:

1. You require such precise (or large) impact calculations that no one ever reports an impact on any improvement ideas
2. Every person in your organization needs a lot of formal training before getting engaged in continuous improvement
3. You have 22 spreadsheets that you email back and forth with progress updates
4. You need a meeting to approve ideas before people can start making improvements. Double whammy if that meeting has to be scheduled far into the future
5. Process changes are only implemented if they shoot for “perfect,” rather than simply “better”

Organizations that succeed in spreading a culture of continuous improvement do so because their methodology is simple. Employees know enough about the chosen continuous improvement discipline to find opportunities for improvement, but they aren’t developed into experts in some methodology before they’re allowed to participate. People have an easy way to submit opportunities for improvement, and they’re empowered to make small improvements on their own. They have a way to calculate their impact accurately enough that the data is useful, but not so precise that it deters such reporting altogether.

Essentially, you want to make your improvement methodology simple enough that everyone can participate with a low barrier to engagement.

Consistent

In order for your improvement methodology to be effective, you must implement it consistently throughout your organization. Managers should all get the same training regarding employee engagement, and the same strategies should be adapted for each area of the organization. This is especially important for aggregating the impact of continuous improvement from across the organization. If one group collects their impact in a complicated Excel file while another keeps a running tally on a bulletin board, leadership has no way to figure out the cumulative or comparable impact of that work.

A successful culture of continuous improvement has a structured, consistent way to:

1. Identify opportunities for improvement
2. Track the progress of each improvement idea
3. Report on the individual and cumulative impact of improvements 4. Store improvement knowledge for future reference

Disciplined

A disciplined methodology is key to spreading a culture of continuous improvement. In a disciplined culture of continuous improvement:

Everyone is encouraged to participate in continuous improvement
1. There is visibility into all levels of the organization, ensuring widespread engagement
2. Leaders respond quickly to people's ideas or opportunities
3. Employees implement their improvement ideas without delay
4. Deadlines are kept and overdue items are promptly addressed
5. An impact is calculated for each and every improvement
6. The status of improvements is communicated clearly and efficiently

Continuous improvement doesn’t play second fiddle in organizations that have mastered the cultural transformation. Every employee and leader knows that improvement is a key aspect of their job, and they approach it with the same weight and discipline as they would any other key performance indicator.

Improvement Technology

Empower Your Team to Make More Improvements and Maximize Impact

VISIBILITY

Get insight into improvement everywhere

STANDARD

Create a unified improvement culture

COLLABORATION

Empower teams to work together efficiently

IMPACT

Accelerate change for a greater impact

SHARING

Promote knowledge sharing across your organization

FEATURES

See how improvement software works

Technology is the piece of the equation that is most often missing from organizations struggling with the development of improvement cultures. Widespread continuous improvement is difficult to manage and monitor with traditional technologies such as suggestion boxes, spreadsheets, and idea boards. Continuous improvement software fills that gap, connecting diverse, dispersed employees with features that enable collaboration and communication, enhance visibility, increase productivity, and enable consistent impact reporting.

Here are the features continuous improvement software should provide:

Structured Flexibility

Continuous improvement software provides a structured improvement management that is uniformly used by all employees, with the flexibility to scale and fit improvement work of all sizes and types. The software should also provide a means of storing all documents, communication, tasks, and follow up items related to a particular opportunity for improvement in a single location.

Smart Notifications

Smart notifications can come in the form of flags that are displayed in the platform itself, as well as in the form of emails that are automatically sent when something changes in the system, along with daily recaps.

Active notifications promote effective leadership behaviors and methodologies by:

- Streamlining communication
- Providing a single source for improvement updates
- Reducing the amount of time spent in meetings
- Ensuring quick follow up to questions and action items logged in the software
- Sending automated reminders of upcoming due dates and overdue work to

Engagement and Impact Reports

Continuous improvement software provides reports that make it easy for you to see


- The overall health of your improvement program
- The engagement levels of individuals, work areas, and the organization as a whole
- The impact (both financial and non-financial) of continuous improvement

Built-in Recognition

Continuous improvement software lets you recognize employees with features such as virtual badge systems and online profiles that publicly identify each individual’s success. Software can also provide you with the information you need to take recognition one step further by identifying high-performers and recognizing them in more formal, real-life celebrations such as quarterly employee recognition ceremonies.

Broadcast Improvement

Continuous improvement software automatically broadcasts the results of and details about your implemented ideas. This feature encourages more people to get involved in continuous improvement, recognizes those who are making improvements, disseminates best practices throughout the organization, and ensures that each improvement has the maximum impact.

Capture Tribal Knowledge

Continuous improvement software gives your organization a long-term memory. The software creates an improvement knowledge repository that is accessible to anyone in the organization, and is searchable so that all future staff and leaders may benefit from that institutional knowledge. It serves as a single source of truth for all improvement work that everyone in the organization refers to with improvement questions and ideas.

Easy to Deploy

In line with keeping your methodology simple, you should select easily deployed continuous improvement software. You don’t want to start using something that will be too complicated for your average user, or require that each employee undergo massive amounts of training to get up and running on it.

A Three Tiered Approach to Improvement: