Pretty much everyone I meet doesn't like receiving a non-conformance from their own business. I don't either, I like to think that I am competent at what I do. However, once the sting of the 'NCR' abates the opportunity appears...
How many times have you put an idea forward to improve a part of your business just to have it shot down by lots of reasons as to why it won't work? Although these reasons might be useful considerations it is often the way that they are provided to a discussion that makes them unhelpful. Do you know what I mean?
The opinions that count of course! When we are looking at changes that are going to take place in a business there may be several viewpoints that need to be taken into consideration. There might also be information that needs to be shared and acted upon. If you skip this step you're taking a risk...
One of my clients was complaining about the slow progress they were making on their improvements. In the past I have felt the same frustration, the feeling that you want all of the improvements to take effect today (or tomorrow, latest!). But sometimes we need to put this into context...
"Making It Happen" - continuous improvement course overview from gilesjohnston Giles Johnston Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' continuous improvement strategies online course.
Recently I had been pushing one of my clients to improve the amount of information they had available to them. In many businesses there can be too much information, stuff that gets produced that no one uses. In other businesses there is the opposite problem, not enough information being produced to make meaningful decisions from. Eventually my client made the following statement:
Guess what? If you just ignore a problem in your business it is likely that it will continue. This might not always be the case (yes, some things seem to resolve themselves...), but for the majority of problems we face they need to be dealt with. Recognition is the first step
When you have standard (routine) meetings you need to be prepared. Your team need to be prepared too. I see many of these meetings go through the motions and not really add any value to the day. How are yours? Here are some quick tips to reinvigorate your meetings if you aren't getting the results you want.
Continuous improvement needs time. Isn't that a revelation? It is a challenge for many of us to work out how to juggle our day to day obligations with our desire to improve how our business performs. For many of us our expectations of how fast we can progress is unrealistic and this can lead to frustration and eventually the stalling of our improvement projects.
That's a great question isn't it? Many times we get ourselves into conversations where we almost get convinced that there is no issue to resolve, no problem that needs fixing. But, we have to remember why we started the conversation in the first place.
I see many business improvement plans on my journeys. Many of them have a high level feel to them, general statements of intent rather than action plans. Are yours like this? If the answer is yes, then perhaps it is time to 'explode the details'!