I have recently published a new free guide, with the title: Six Quick Tips to Help Continuous Improvement Deliver Results Faster In the guide I share how to: Use the continuous improvement cycle properly. Get projects moving, if they are slow to start or have stalled. Identify the 'biggest bang for your buck' when reviewing opportunities. Determine the level of change you need to achieve through your improvements. Flip staff grumbles and concerns into positive improvement actions. Increase the overall rate of progress on your projects. All of the tips are highly practical and are no-cost strategies. To get your copy, just click on the button below and access the guide in just a few moments from now. Enjoy reading, Giles About the author Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes. Giles is also the author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Ma

I sit in a lot of meetings where people talk about their continuous improvement projects. Sitting and talking doesn’t always equate to getting the changes put into effect and that’s what we need; the results count for everything. So, is there a simple way to help move projects from being stuck, delayed and appearing to wait for a perfect plan (or time)? The short answer is yes, and it revolves around our old friend the ‘80/20’ rule. Can you remember the 80/20 rule? This is the simple principle that states that a small number of inputs leads to a disproportionately large amount of rules. A little bit can go a long way, if you choose the right things to focus on. The opposite of this is also true; a lot of things can take a lot of time / effort / resources and yield very little in terms of overall results. The 80/20 rule (or Pareto principle) - a little bit of the right stuff can produce a lot of results! Phase 1 – quick wins and focus on the 20% that gives the 80% of resul

Many businesses have heard of 5S; it is a simple workplace organisation system that is designed to make workplaces more effective and more efficient, as well as safer. Many businesses also try and fail at implementing 5S . It might be simple, but as you will know, anything that involves changing the behaviours of your staff isn’t always straightforward. If you haven’t heard of 5S before there are five basic steps, all beginning with ‘S’. They are: Sort – clearing out the clutter and re-distributing other people’s belongings. Set in order – optimising the workplace so that everything you need frequently is close at hand. Shine – cleaning the workplace to an appropriate level. Standards – defining what good looks like and how you will keep it that way. Sustain – forming the habits to retain the benefits of an organised and disciplined workplace. So, how does 5S improve the performance of your business? From a safety perspective, fewer accidents means less downtime.

There are some things that would make a real difference to your business if you could just get them done, aren’t there? For most of us there are a handful of improvement projects that can help us get the results we are looking for in our business. There might be twenty opportunities, but only a few of them will make a significant difference to our current working practices. Our day to day workloads, demands from customers and suppliers, colleagues and managers can really deflect our focus away from these continuous improvement objectives. The day to day stuff is really important, and I am not suggesting that you start to avoid those tasks, but what would the rewards be if you could get your improvement projects fully implemented? There is usually a time saving resulting from improvements. This time saving can be re-invested to work on the next project, but only if you keep the focus on the project in the first place. So, how can you go about doing this? Here are two practical su

I had a funny conversation a few weeks ago with a team that was complaining about one of their colleagues spending 'ages' preparing their workstation within their factory. I meet a lot of people that spend too long preparing (and effectively procrastinating) so I was intrigued by their comment. It turns out that this individual didn't spend too long but rather his colleagues dived into their work without thinking through what the best way to work was... The slower to start gentleman did in fact prepare his work area. He was also able to produce a far greater amount of work in the same time period because he had invested in a smarter way of working than his counterparts. The time spent preparing his working area was valuable and not overdone. This example reminds us of the importance of the second S in 5S (set in order) and how workstation design is critical if we want to maximise the productivity of our teams. Whether this is a physical work area in a factory, the fili

Last week I was working with a company that had a handful of clear issues that were significantly affecting their operational performance. From talking to them they sometimes focused on them and sometimes they didn't. If you want to make headway with your improvement and performance challenges then you need to keep your issues in front of your team until they are dealt with. There are lots of improvement methodologies available to improve how a business functions and performs, but none of them are worthwhile if you don't demonstrate sustained effort with your challenges. I see lots of businesses that get close to completing their improvements, but fail to properly finish them off. They never stick with the improvement, because they have lost focus, and therefore don't get the rewards. Many issues are linked to discipline. Discipline comes from habits. Habits come from focus . You have got to keep your eye on the issues that you want to resolve for long enough if y

My first app is now available on Google Play for Android devices. Many of my clients have asked me if I could make a simple Concern Cause Countermeasure (also known as CCC and 3C) app for their smartphones so that they have the tool at hand whenever they are walking around their business. Long story short, I made an app for Android devices and it has just been published on Google Play. It is called Pocket CCC  and costs £1.79. The app also links to a web resource to show you how to get the most out of the app and this approach. This app is great if you want to capture concerns floating round your business and want to generate simple but effective improvement countermeasures . If you have never used this approach before then you can use the tutorial to get you up to speed quickly. The interface has been stripped back so that it is Lean and only takes about 30 seconds to understand how to use it. To get your copy visit Google Play here or click on the button below.

The conversion of my book What Does Good Look Like? for iTunes has now been completed. Get away from Groundhog Day and into a higher gear with this practical book The book is designed for business managers that are fed up with sub-standard performance. Many times this is down to the standards not being adequately described. Other times the team don't have a grasp of a vision of what good looks like, so how can they ever achieve it? The book contains simple methods to develop these visions and part two shares more practical ideas on how you can best implement the change. To get hold of your copy of my book follow the link below: Buy your copy from iTunes Enjoy, Giles About the author Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes. Giles is also the author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' continuous improvement toolkit.

Many improvement projects need the buy in of several people before they can progress. Amongst these people there will be some that have a firm view of what needs to happen and are keen to make progress. Some of the people won't be sure and they will need more time. Other people might not be that interested and have other priorities they want to focus on. None of this is wrong. It is an observation of mine and one that I see repeat on a regular basis with the businesses that I come into contact with. But, if we take the principle from the observation we have an interesting improvement strategy (one that I personally use when I get stuck with my client's improvement projects). You might have worked out the approach from the title of this blog post, but it is analogous to a three-legged race (or four, five, nine...). If someone in the group moves in the wrong direction and / or at the wrong speed then the whole group falls over. In the example I gave at the start it

For those of you that are regulars to this website, you will know that I have recently published my next book - What Does Good Look Like? The purpose of this post is to explain how I wrote the book when I was already up to my eyeballs with consulting projects, a busy home life and some voluntary work thrown into the mix. Clients and friends have asked me in the last few weeks " How do you have time to write another book? " The short answer is that I am the same as pretty much everyone - I don't have time to write a book! Available for Kindle and in paperback That's where our good old friend Kaizen comes in. I didn't write a book; I created my own 100 words a day challenge. Writing a book - I don't have time for that! Writing 100 words a day - how could I fail? If you haven't come across the Kaizen method before it is a brilliant approach to break big challenges down into tiny bite size chunks. The real power of Kaizen is to avoid triggering

My new book What Does Good Look Like?  has now received its first official review: innovate risk wrote on the 20th of October: Available in paperback and on Kindle "Quite simply I have bought 3 more copies of this book to provide to members of my team. For too long, the focus of consultants and advisors has been on "define the problem" and then resolve, but to me that was always missing the real point. The real point is to define "what good looks like", or "what awesome looks like" as per Giles. This book hits this exact point between the eyes and I thoroughly recommend reading this quick and easy book. The techniques provided are simple but most importantly easy to understand and undertake. We need to move away from defining the problem, to defining what "good looks like" for our customers and our people." (This quote was taken from  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3988KW#customerReviews ) To get your copy of the book c

Get your copy today Available from Amazon and iTunes When we experience the day to day frustrations of our team not working in the way that we want them to we have a few options: We can shout at them and tell them that their work isn't good enough. We can try and figure out why their work isn't good enough and try to help them improve. We can articulate what good looks like and help share with them some principles we want them to work to. The last point, sharing with them the principles of how you want your team to run, can be invaluable not just for your under-performing team members but for the wider business. Let me give you an example. I worked with a business that was struggling to keep up with their client projects. We looked at a number of their failings and came up with handful of 'performance principles' that included: We don't do surprises - if something bad happens tell your team mates immediately and work on a plan together. Wal

Do your continuous improvement ideas get shot down because people say: "It's different every time!" I find that this is a common response across many different businesses that deliver projects and /or don't have their own line of products. In this situation I feel that the above response is largely down to the fact that people get embroiled in the nitty-gritty of their work that they can't see the process sitting in the background. The truth is that if you look past the detail of the task in hand, should it be prone to variations, you will see generic activities behind it. These generic activities are the ones that you can focus on to improve the results of every 'variation' that then goes through your process. Just because every project, product or service running through your business is different to the last one doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities for improvement sitting there. There will be similarities between projects and d

I chatted with a production team the other day about ways in which we could improve their performance . They had recently overcome some major operational issues but still weren't in a place that they needed to be. We overcame the awkwardness of the conversation by talking about the overall ambitions of the business and the relevance to them and then got talking about general performance improvement. Available from Amazon and iTunes At first the conversation was really stilted because, for them, where do you start? This is a challenge for all management and leadership to overcome, helping your teams to see the opportunities for improvement and then helping them to help themselves get past this sticking point into action. In this particular conversation I split up the ambitions of the business into multiple areas. Each area was small enough to have a meaningful discussion around it that naturally generated a range of improvement opportunities for the team. Breaking big pictur

Have you tried the Concern - Cause - Countermeasure approach with your team? You might also know it as CCC or 3Cs, either way it is a brilliant tool to help you engage your teams and manage continuous improvement opportunities. I help many of my clients to use this tool and it really does help to make the improvement conversation flow. I have just uploaded a template and instructions, to help you get the most out of the CCC approach, to my main website here -  http://www.systemsandprocesses.co.uk/process-improvement-download-toolkits/ccc-worksheet/ If you are looking for a quick way to engage your teams, focus on a specific improvement topic, or drive general improvements within a function of your business it really is a great tool. And, as with most of these things, the way that you apply it is key to getting great results. The short (only 3 pages) instructions can help you to do this. As it is part of the Kit 'n' Go range on my website the whole download is only

Continual improvement only happens when you actually do something. So, why do we generally spend so much time talking about change rather than doing something about it? Available on Kindle , iBooks and in paperback Whilst there are a whole range of reasons as to why we opt for debate rather than action, most of them boil down to people being afraid of change itself. With that in mind, here are three quick and simple ways to get change to start taking effect if it has stalled in your business. Use experiments Remember when you were at school and you performed experiments? You didn’t know what the outcome was going to be and that was OK . When we undertake continual improvement activities it is highly likely that we don’t exactly know the right formula for a successful change. So, we can use the same idea (it is an experiment) and learn from our results. We don’t have to be iron cast with our changes and by sharing this lack of expectation with our team can help to do just

Isn't that a question to get you thinking? I speak to lots of people that get stuck in this dynamic. They know what is right and they stick to their guns, but (occasionally) at the cost of not getting the results they wanted. Getting results often means that you have to do things that you think that someone else should do, or in a way that isn't 'perfect' in your eyes in order to see the results that you want. Have you been guilty of being stuck in this mode from time to time? Getting results doesn't mean that you have to do someone else's work, rather that you put your pride to one side and perform tasks that you could consider as being beneath you for a short period of time. A perfect example of this was when I recently had to get some stickers cut to size and no one wanted to undertake the task on the team I was working with; they all turned their noses up at the idea. However, the stickers had to be resized to prove that the imaging system on the

Do your reporting lines help you to become more productive? It is question that appears to be rarely asked. Reporting lines exist for most businesses, but to directly increase productivity? Organisation hierarchies are often thought through with a great deal of care. What isn't considered as thoroughly is how the objectives of the management team are cascaded and how the reporting of critical information is handled.  A Simple Feedback Loop The sketch below depicts this consideration: In this model the manager clearly articulates the objective, goal or target that they need their team member(s) to achieve. The objective should help the business to increase its performance - including its effectiveness and productivity. The team member communicates the relevant information to the manager at agreed intervals to the level of detail that has been agreed. Formal reporting can take a number of forms, including: Written reports Meetings One to one catch ups Visua

I have the great fortune to work with a wide range of up and coming continuous improvement professionals. Some of them I get to mentor and some I only get to spend time with on projects. I have noticed a distinction within these groups; some progress a lot faster than others. The individuals that progress their development faster than the other group aren’t necessarily better skilled, or have some other talent, but they do one thing the other group don’t: They figure out what works and do more of it and what doesn’t work and do less of that. Not exactly rocket science, but something that I strongly advocate to those that I mentor. These individuals reflect on what they are doing and what they have done and spot the lessons lying underneath the activity. The lessons themselves are unlikely to be the results of the activities, but more what was learned about carrying out the activities. Lessons often include: How to plan more effectively. How to communicate more effectively.

I love the phrase 'what gets measured gets managed', it is so apt. There is a downside to this phrase, however, and I saw it in action again last week. One of my clients had a real issue with one of their business processes, it was under performing and causing a tangible knock on effect for the rest of the business. Available from Amazon and iTunes They had already looked at their process, developed a metric to help measure the performance and, as the saying goes, it got managed. At the same time this team took their eye off the ball with another one of their key processes and that started to go downhill. We put a measure in place for the other process, established a degree of formality around their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - of which there were now two - and balanced out the management of the processes. So, what is the lesson here? Make sure that the team are measuring all of their key processes before the change is about to start. In this case t