When discussing change projects with clients, time is a key factor.
Like anything, if you have already walked the (continuous improvement) path you have a better idea of how hard and how long things will take. These conversations are no different.
What I have found is that when you break down the project into the individual tasks, most people that are relatively new to change will expect the tasks to take longer. They often build in lots of procrastination time in too.
A quick remedy
If you are experiencing this issue in your organisation, here's a quick way to fix this.
When your team member is defining the actions required to make a change happen, partner them with a more experienced person until they have at least three improvements under their belt. Use this as a way to estimate a realistic duration for the tasks.
Don't confuse deadlines with duration
The work content for a task and the duration to complete it are often two separate things.
A task might have a total of fifteen minutes of effort for you but take a week to complete if you are waiting for a response from a colleague in the middle of it. Or, if you need to wait for a moment in time to perform the task, this could define the completion date.
We often blur the two things and this only works to make the plan for implementation get longer and seem more overwhelming. Overwhelming is not the friend of fast and effective improvements!
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Re-jig your plans
If you are facing a situation where your team are not making progress with their improvements, try the above approach. Go back through their action list and help them to estimate how much effort (time) their tasks will take.
It is usual for a more senior person that hasn't done this kind of improvement to miss out a bunch of steps. If this is the case, let the junior person add them to the list. Your job here is to push them to be realistic about how much effort is actually required to complete a task.
Give it a go and see what happen!
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?'.
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?'.