It's a good question, one that we sometimes forget to ask. If you want your processes to deliver on time , then starting on time is one of the best (and simplest) strategies that you can deploy. But, let me twist this question around slightly...

Most people I speak to would say “no”. Another question for you - have you mapped your processes recently? I’m not talking about do you have mapped processes for your ISO 9001 Quality Management System from five years ago, I’m talking about a process being mapped in the last six months.

How do you measure your business processes? Do you have a good feel for how well things are going, or does your experience tell you something else?

How many times have you started an improvement project , handed it over and then watched it fall over? Too many?

This is a question I often pose to my clients. Many businesses will organise their standardised daily meetings   around a slot in their diary that suits the people attending, but not necessarily the business.

I have just added my various process improvement kits to the Making It Happen  toolkit as part of the normal membership package.

When we re-design our processes it can be easy to get carried away. New ideas, new changes and new opportunities are all around. How do you keep your enthusiasm under control, just long enough, so that you end up with a really good new process design?

Our business processes often stay the same, unchallenged if they are producing the results that they were designed for... but never reaching their full potential. So, what happens when you ask one of your colleagues what they think about your processes?

Yesterday I was talking to one of my clients about the value of holding a daily 'huddle'. By this I mean a very short, process driven, daily meeting. Do you do these in your business?

My book ' Business Process Re-engineering ' is now available in Vietnamese. If you would like further information, and to purchase, please visit  http://thaihabooks.com/sach-thaiha/798/Thay-dau-cho-bo-may-doanh-nghiep/ 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 strategies course.

After receiving a number of requests, I have made the Making It Happen course available as an instant download.

How many times have you put an idea forward to improve a part of your business just to have it shot down by lots of reasons as to why it won't work? Although these reasons might be useful considerations it is often the way that they are provided to a discussion that makes them unhelpful. Do you know what I mean?

The opinions that count of course! When we are looking at changes that are going to take place in a business there may be several viewpoints that need to be taken into consideration. There might also be information that needs to be shared and acted upon. If you skip this step you're taking a risk...

"Making It Happen" - continuous improvement course overview from gilesjohnston Giles Johnston Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' continuous improvement strategies online course.

Recently I had been pushing one of my clients to improve the amount of information they had available to them. In many businesses there can be too much information, stuff that gets produced that no one uses. In other businesses there is the opposite problem, not enough information being produced to make meaningful decisions from. Eventually my client made the following statement:

Where does your business data flow to? Does it get shared, linked and used around your business? Or, does it get produced and nothing happens to it?

Have you ever played the yellow car game*? If you haven't, you might be wondering how many yellow cars there are on the roads. But, if you have you might be like me, staggered at how many yellow cars there are! Process improvement is similar.

When you implement (or update) a new business process it is vital that you understand how to manage it. It is one thing to use the metrics in your business to keep an eye on it, but sometimes you need to ask questions to make sure it is working the way that you want it to.

A strategy that many people use, when trying to develop ideas to improve their business, is using building blocks. By this I mean that they break down how their business works into smaller, easy to understand, chunks. Let me give you an example:

If you are having difficulties with driving consistency through your business processes and need to improve the habits and disciplines within your business then today you are in luck!