The Smartspeed Performance Improvement Blog

Cutting corners can feel like a sensible shortcut when you’re busy. A quick workaround. A step skipped “just this once”. But in most businesses, the real damage isn’t immediate. It shows up later as higher costs, more rework, slower decisions, frustrated customers, and a team that spends more time firefighting than improving. In other words: cutting corners doesn’t just affect today’s task. It quietly undermines overall business performance. Why Shortcuts Become Expensive Most corner-cutting starts with good intentions: “We don’t have time.” “We’ll tidy it up later.” “It’s only a small job.” The problem is that shortcuts create a new normal. Standards drift: The agreed way of working becomes optional. Bad habits form: The shortcut becomes the default, not the exception. Rework increases: Issues that should have been prevented get fixed later at a higher cost. Decisions get weaker: Without the right checks, data, or handovers, you get more guesswork. Trust e...

Running a business is a constant balancing act—juggling priorities, firefighting issues, and trying to keep your team on track. But what if you could achieve meaningful improvements without overhauling your entire operation? The answer lies in quick wins—small, practical changes that create momentum and deliver results fast. Here’s how you can use simple routines to boost your business performance, based on proven methods from ‘ Every Business Needs a Routine ’. Available from Amazon and other online stores 1. Start Your Day with a Team Huddle A brief daily meeting—no more than 10 minutes—sets the tone for the day. Focus on: Yesterday’s wins and lessons Today’s top priorities Any roadblocks needing attention This habit improves communication, surfaces issues early, and keeps everyone aligned. 2. Use RAG Trackers for Clarity A Red-Amber-Green (RAG) tracker is a visual way to monitor key metrics and spot trouble before it escalates. Update it daily or weekly—whichever suits y...

A Manager's Guide to Constructive Conversations We've all been there. You notice a team member doing something that's affecting performance - maybe they're skipping a critical step in the process, or perhaps they've developed a shortcut that's creating problems downstream. You know you need to address it, but the thought of that conversation fills you with dread. What if they get defensive? What if it damages your working relationship? What if they think you're micromanaging? So you put it off. And the problem continues. Performance suffers. Frustration builds. The Real Cost of Avoiding These Conversations When managers avoid correcting behaviour, the impact ripples through the entire operation: Quality suffers as incorrect methods become the norm Efficiency drops when people work around problems instead of fixing them Team morale declines as those doing things correctly feel their efforts don't matter Process drift accelerates until nobody remembers...

Do you get hung up on the idea of perfection, when it comes to improving the performance of your business? Most of us do. People are watching what we do and this can be off putting. But, rather than watch what people do, what should we (all) be focussing on? Results! Perfection can be an absolute pig when it comes improving our business performance . If we could jump from where we are today to some perfect state, we'd all do it. The important thing for non-critical improvement projects is direction of travel, followed closely by pace of travel. Finding something that works better than today and implementing it puts you ahead of most people trying to improve their business. Once you have it in place you can iterate and upgrade what you have done, moving you another step closer to your vision of perfection. Available from Amazon , Apple Books and more If you subscribe to the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and Act) approach, then this is an ideal time to put your belief into practice. Take th...

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 fift...

The reason I wrote the book What Does Good Look Like? was for this reason. Improvement shouldn't be hard. For many organisations we spend too much time telling people what we don't want and not enough time being clear about what we do want. Available from Amazon What does a good performance look like? Describe it to yourself, clarify it and then describe it to your team. Just doing this can be enough to witness a step change in your performance. Tie it in with some decent Standard Operating Procedures and you have the making of a sustainable change. Are you up for having a go at this? 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? ' .

Have you heard of the sunrise meeting approach? It's a fast and simple management approach that helps your teams to focus on the essential parts of their role. This can be used to maximise output and achieve high on time delivery performance. I've just uploaded this video to You Tube that explains: what a sunrise meeting is,  what the benefits are, how you create one, and how our ERP system ( Fraction ERP ) helps to run a sunrise meeting. The sunrise meeting approach is one of my 'go to' tools when working with a new business that needs to get a grip over their operational performance. If you haven't come across this term before then I hope the video above gives you some good ideas. If you need some more detailed instructions, and some more ideas on how to apply the approach, check out my book Sunrise Meetings on Amazon , Apple Books and other platforms here . Giles About the author: Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses t...