Make big strides with your continual improvements, by going backwards

How many times have you wondered what the tasks need to be in your improvement plan?

You know what you want, but you just aren't quite sure what the actions need to be.

I have a simple suggestion.

Go backwards.

That's right, start at the result you want and then imagine your way backwards.

Many people feel uncomfortable doing this the first time as it is not the normal way of planning improvement projects.

But, if you give it a go I think that you will be pleasantly surprised.

To make your trialling of this method easier please visit my 'Creating Effective Actions Plan' page on the Making It Happen website.

You can access the page here - http://www.making-it-happen.website/free-tools/b-to-a-planning/

I think that you'll find that this approach can help you create effective action plans very quickly.

Enjoy,

Giles

Click here to access free improvement tools

Where to start with Kaizen, if you just aren't sure

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I often end up in conversations about how to stimulate Kaizen ideas and opportunities. If you have read my other posts, you will know that I split the improvement journey into two halves. For many people, the initial Kaizen focus is all around fixing things that are wrong / not working properly. Once you get past this point you need something else to focus and motivate you to generate improvement opportunities. The two halves of the Kaizen journey The discussion that I often end up in, is the one around the imagination quandary. People talk to me about not being creative, or not being inspired to come up with improvement ideas. Do you ever feel this way? It seems that there is a popular view that some people are creative and some aren't. Great Kaizen ideas are not just the product of 'creative' people. There are lots of ways that you can generate improvement ideas without having to sit on a mountain top cross legged waiting for inspiration. Finding a 'mechanical' w

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Projects, especially improvement projects, have a tendency to get off track. There is often a clear distinction between projects for customers and projects for ourselves. If our improvement projects fall behind then our customers won't be barking at us; it is no wonder that if something is going to slip it is our Kaizen endeavours. For some people this can be a tough conversation to have. No one wants to be a 'failure' and pride often gets in the way. In my experience it seems that it is believed to be far more credible to ignore the requirement to improve than to admit that we aren't making progress. So, if you find yourself (and your business) in this situation, what can you do about it? Let me share with you two options to increase the visibility in your business around progress with projects and four options to help get your projects back on track. Increasing visibility Ok, no more hiding the status of Kaizen activities . This also means no more being precious about

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