Do you embrace incremental change?

There are a number of ways to look at change.

1. Wait until what you are going to do is perfect, then launch the change.

2. Accept 'winning ugly' and incrementally improve what you are doing until you are satisfied with the results.

Option 1 is sometimes required, but only when it is a specific requirement of the change project.

The rest of the time, option 2 is available to us.

But, when you over think the process of change, or you have bosses that want to see results immediately you can end up with option 3; no results.

Let's think through option 2. Today you don't have the improvement. Tomorrow you could have a slightly better version. This could be repeated day after today, until one day, you have the result you need.

Very few of us have time to stop our day jobs and dedicate ourselves to improvement projects. So, this strategy can work for the majority of us.

If you find yourself being stuck with your changes, try embracing incremental change a little more.

Giles

About the author:

Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes and embracing Kaizen.

Giles is also the author of Effective Root Cause Analysis and 'What Does Good Look Like?'.

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