There is a great time management phrase, it says:
"Do Less Better"
I don't know if you subscribe to this approach, but I certainly try my best to do so.
It certainly holds very true when you are trying to improve your business. With so many day to day pressures already being upon us, our continuous improvement projects can just seem like unnecessary, unwanted, additional pressure.
This situation is then made more arduous and complicated by not having just one continuous improvement project / focus at a time but several. Have you been in the situation where you have numerous competing projects, for the the time that you just do not have? I know I have in the past, and I won't be the last.
I can see the frustration in my client's eyes when they just aren't making progress with any of their improvements. Not just one project is failing, they are all failing. I've tried to juggle several change projects plus my Operations Manager job in a past life and I simply did them all badly.
Like my clients I had to prioritise. Not just a ranking system, a single project to complete, forgetting the rest until the first one is done.
Clarity returns, progress is tangible and, if you chose wisely, you start to build up some capacity for properly tackling your other projects.
If your continuous improvement projects aren't going the way you had hoped then perhaps it is time to step back and see if you are doing less better, or if you are going around in circles trying to do everything at once.
Don't get worked up about which project to pick either. A quick review and your gut feel can work wonders. Just getting some progress can give you the momentum you need to tackle the remaining list of improvements you have currently identified.
Giles Johnston
Author of 'Effective Continuous Improvement'. Available on Kindle , PDF and other formats.