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Structuring your improvement team for increased effectiveness

Many businesses have continuous improvement teams set up. They are without hierarchy and free to organise themselves.

In many cases they work extremely well.

On the other hand, these teams sometimes fail to generate the results that people expect.

What do you do when the results aren't forthcoming?
Let me offer you a simple strategy that has helped numerous businesses.

Review the talents and strengths of each team member and then create some loose roles according to their strengths.

Most improvement teams lack clarity, everyone is expected to muck in but unless you have some natural leaders (which isn't the point of most of these teams) everyone being equal doesn't always work.

When I say loose roles I am referring to people taking the lead when the team get to certain points.

For example, some people are better at:

  • Recording and managing actions.
  • Analysing data.
  • Presenting ideas.
  • Facilitating discussions.
  • etc...
Aligning the team members strengths to the situations it will experience means that the right people in the team can help out in the right ways at the right time.

If your improvement team(s) are struggling to produce the results then this approach is worth exploring.

Clarity is essential to effective continuous improvement.




Giles Johnston
Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the 'Making It Happen' online course for discovering simple change management strategies.

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