When you start out on a new path of change it can often be a little messy. The idea you have in your head doesn't always appear when you try the 'new thing' for the first time. As this is so true of many continuous improvements I thought I would share a few of my thoughts on the matter. When a business identifies improvements in its communication then some form of meeting is usually instigated to improve the said communication issue. I'm a big fan of standardised meetings. These are meetings that are focused on very specific outcomes, are usually as short as they possibly can be, and support the effective routines already defined by the business. Often the first few meetings bring up all kinds of additional issues that the business is facing. This noise can be distracting and it may take a few meetings to get past this confusing stage and into short productive meetings.

It was nice to see yesterday that one of my past articles on improving the productivity of office teams was being tweeted and re-tweeted. You can read it here. Giles Johnston ...fixing MRP systems and re-engineering business processes

When you review a high level process map of your business, or perform some kind of root cause analysis on problems you have you may find that you need to have a conversation with another department... about their performance. There is nothing wrong with this. I'm sure that your customers will happily have this conversation with you and your department should the need arise.

Central to Continuous Improvement is the PDCA (Plan - Do - Check - Act) cycle. I talk about this a lot as I believe it is rare for every improvement that we attempt to work perfectly the first time. One part of using this approach effectively is the ability to modify your questions when you aren't getting the answers that you need.

Do you get frustrated by this one? You go to a meeting and find out that people who are meant to have completed their actions haven't done so.

Kamishibai boards are one of the most popular searched for items on this blog. So, with that in mind, I couldn't leave Kev's kamishibai board out! Kev is a Team Leader at one of my clients and he has taken the idea of the red / green visual management approach to help communicate the state of the TPM of their forklift trucks. The wall above is in a very visible location in the factory grounds so that anyone can see the status. I love it, simple but effective. Kev, I salute you! Giles Johnston ...fixing MRP systems and re-engineering business processes

No one knows all of the answers. Continuous Improvement can sometimes seem like a lonely place to be when you are making a decision on how to improve a process. That's exactly the time when it's good to 'find a friend'.