A Quick Continuous Improvement Start

When you embark on making changes to your business Planning is required. If you recall the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and Act) cycle, you will know just how important this is to effective change management.

There are a lot of businesses, however, who get too bogged down with their Planning and become ineffective with their Doing.

Now, there are also a lot of businesses who are pretty poor at their Planning and still poor at their Doing, but that's another story for another day. I want to briefly focus on those who get too wrapped up with their Planning.

If this rings a bell with you then here is my simple suggestion:

Aim for a smaller project in the first place (one with less Planning and less impact).

PDCA is a cycle after all. There is nothing stopping you from picking a small improvement, or a less ambitious version of what you really want, putting it through its paces and then building up the next time around. Aside from the progress you would be making (by actually doing something) you would most likely have learned something in the process and be better equipped for the bigger trip round the cycle.

So, if you're getting hung up with the Planning for a bigger project why not consider completing a smaller one first and seeing where it takes you to?

Giles Johnston
Author of Business Process Re-Engineering

Available in PDF format

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