Do you look like you carry out continuous improvement?

This might sound like a stupid question, but do you?

How would you tell?

Here are some clues, see how many you can recognise:

You have a team the spends part of their time working on continuous improvement projects.
You have a clear list of continuous improvement projects.
You have a priority on said list of projects.
People in your business talk about improvement projects on a regular basis.
They talk about continuous improvement without prompting!
New ideas are captured systematically.
New ideas are generated through both formal business activities and informally through suggestions from the team.
Progress would be visible.
Data from business key performance indicators generate new opportunities for improvement.
You celebrate, and promote, the successes from your improvements.

This list isn't exhaustive, of course.

But, what this list should do is help let you know if you are a business that looks and feels like you embrace continuous improvement.

If you aren't doing at least a handful of these things, then pick an easy one that you can start with. Start small and build from there.

From there you can add in a few handy techniques to help you generate improvement opportunities, so your stream of ideas never runs dry.

Giles

Available from Amazon and Apple Books

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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