The Smartspeed Performance Improvement Blog

I often end up in conversations about how to stimulate Kaizen ideas and opportunities. If you have read my other posts, you will know that I split the improvement journey into two halves. For many people, the initial Kaizen focus is all around fixing things that are wrong / not working properly. Once you get past this point you need something else to focus and motivate you to generate improvement opportunities. The two halves of the Kaizen journey The discussion that I often end up in, is the one around the imagination quandary. People talk to me about not being creative, or not being inspired to come up with improvement ideas. Do you ever feel this way? It seems that there is a popular view that some people are creative and some aren't. Great Kaizen ideas are not just the product of 'creative' people. There are lots of ways that you can generate improvement ideas without having to sit on a mountain top cross legged waiting for inspiration. Finding a 'mechanical' w...

Projects, especially improvement projects, have a tendency to get off track. There is often a clear distinction between projects for customers and projects for ourselves. If our improvement projects fall behind then our customers won't be barking at us; it is no wonder that if something is going to slip it is our Kaizen endeavours. For some people this can be a tough conversation to have. No one wants to be a 'failure' and pride often gets in the way. In my experience it seems that it is believed to be far more credible to ignore the requirement to improve than to admit that we aren't making progress. So, if you find yourself (and your business) in this situation, what can you do about it? Let me share with you two options to increase the visibility in your business around progress with projects and four options to help get your projects back on track. Increasing visibility Ok, no more hiding the status of Kaizen activities . This also means no more being precious about...

I have heard many business owners over the year complain that change is pitiful within their business. Is this how you feel? I have seen this many times before; that the wrong behaviours get reinforced within these businesses. Their culture simply isn't helping. So, how do you change a culture like this? There are many books written on the topic of culture and changing cultures, but let me offer some of my observations. Getting better is OK Standing still isn't great. Reaching perfection is unlikely. Gaining confidence is great. So why not take some pressure off yourselves and realise that moving in the right direction is good enough at the start of a culture change? Great solutions can be developed by learning There can be so much pressure on people to come up with good improvement ideas. If they aren't used to generating them, this can be a difficult exercise and a lack of confidence doesn't help. Talking with others (especially the boss), without expectation, and gai...

I am pleased to announce that my latest product, The Effective Routine , is now available. One of the issues I see with many businesses is the lack of formal routine that they employ. Whilst this doesn't sound too bad, it can lead to: Poor habits. Unnecessary reworking of previous activities. Re-starting initiatives every few weeks (until you give up). Missing key tasks and not noticing until a crisis appears. Slowing the growth of your business due to diverted resources (from dealing with the above). Businesses that do deploy some kind of routine often fail to extend the idea fully. The Effective Routine  offers ideas on this to stretch your thinking so that you can maximise this approach. And, importantly, this guide and toolkit offer strategies to successfully deploy your routine as well as sustain the system you develop. To get hold of your copy of The Effective Routine , just use the button below. 0,The Effective Routine This 39 page PDF guide also includes 6 worksheets and to...

As I write this post, I hope that you have already got plans in place for 2021 with regards to your process improvement projects. Even if your plans do not run in line with the calendar year, it can be worth taking the time now to reflect briefly on your plans to make sure that they are still inline with where you want to go. It is also, unfortunately, a task that many people don't get around to. Reviewing and revising business plans and continuous improvement plans can seem like a huge task. As you know, huge tasks often fall by the wayside as the day to day activities (and possibly crises!) take over. Kaizen, the art of using small steps, can help us here. Instead of firing off the 'fight or flight' response in the brain, consider having a five minute review of your plans. Don't commit to anything more than this. When you do carry out this quick review, if you feel inclined to make some changes and alter / improve your plans then feel free. This is the art of Kaizen, ...

One of the troubles with continuous improvement is the infectious way that you can create opportunities for improvement once you get the 'bug'. You start off with a few small items that you want to improve in the business and then suddenly you are spotting opportunities left, right and centre. Now, this can be great for some people. They'll dive in, change the world and still manage to deliver on their day job. Wow! ...and then there is the rest of us. The list no longer looks like a wealth of opportunities , it looks overwhelming. I see this all too often and it usually leads to one problematic eventuality: Continuous improvement stops. Has this happened to you? If it has, let me share with you one simple method that can help you to get back on track. Narrow your view! Pick one improvement and focus all of your energies on it. Nibble away at it, a little bit at a time and just park the rest of your improvements for later. I have worked with two teams in just the last week...

Someone tried to derail my day yesterday. They hadn't prepared their information in a timely manner and then tried to cancel our meeting just moments before it was meant to start. I won't go into how I originally rearranged my day for this meeting, or the fact that we still managed to have the meeting, despite a good chunk of data being missing. But, amongst all this frustration, there was a clear learning point for the person in question (I hope that they got the point!). The point was that not only was the task not done, the person who had to do it was oblivious to the fact they had the task to deliver in the first place. I mean, they would have known about it when the task was originally agreed, but since then it has floated away into the ether... So, let me share with the three step plan for increasing the hit rate with these kinds of actions. You can use this if you find yourself struggling, or if you find members of your team accepting tasks and then just not delivering....

If you have read my other blog posts, or books, you will know that I continuously refer to a specific challenge within continuous improvement . The challenge is what happens after you have improved all of the really obvious improvements. I refer to this as being the difference between moving from 'bad to OK' compared to moving from 'OK to amazing'. The first part of the journey is relatively straightforward. You see something that isn't right and you fix it. Simple. So, what happens when you move past this point and you can't see as many things to improve? You need a different focus, you have to start looking somewhere else for your improvement inspiration. Create a powerful vision for your business. Available from Amazon and iTunes The other day I was talking to one my my client's member of staff about this very issue. The person in question was relatively new to the business and had made a big impact to the running and organisation of their manufacturing ...

Last week I was faced with another client project that is falling over. Not a problem, been here before with other clients. But, I don't want to go back to this with the same client... I bet they don't either. Before I rolled up my sleeves and started helping them out, I paused. I asked the owner of the business one question: "What does a good project look like, to you?" Together we drew out a shopping list of things that would form a great project, from delivering it on time to ensuring that they got the outcomes that they were planning for. I like simple questions like this. They force you to think and from here better results are possible. If I just fix something for a client then there is a good chance that the same problem will re-appear in the following months. This is exactly the "teach a person to fish..." approach. So, what does a good project look like for you? How would it be specified? What communication would you have around the project? How oft...

The ' C oncern - Cause - Countermeasure ' approach is a really practical and effective method to identify and deploy change. One of the difficulties in using this method is remembering what you are concerned about in the first place. I developed the simple Pocket CCC app (for Android) to get around this. The simple interface means that you can be up and running in just moments; capturing concerns and identifying improvement actions. See a concern? Capture it on your smartphone there and then. If you would like a free copy of my Pocket CCC Android app then check out Google Pla y this week: Available from Google Play The promotion ends this Sunday (14th June 2020). 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 Effective Root Cause Analysis and ' What Does Good Look Like? ' .

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just  ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it...

Do you feel under pressure when you have to make changes happen in your business? It can be scary when we try something that we have never done before. I remember thinking to myself 'how on Earth am I going to figure this out?' on many occasions. I think the last time was a few weeks ago! Years on from becoming reasonable at the art of change I am still faced with the same dilemma. It is scary and it is clear to me why so many people shy away from making change happen. It is natural to get stuck in this oscillation. On one hand you need to make change happen; the business needs the improvement benefits. On the other hand you don't want to screw up... Last week I was talking to a young engineer that I am mentoring. He was paralysed. Changes were not happening at all. There was always some early promise with his projects and then, as completion (and judgement day) loomed, progress would evaporate. The engineer asked me for my views on this  during a recent conversati...

If you haven’t created your improvement action plan for 2020 yet then I have something for you. I have just completed my latest project – The CI Focus Tool . This Android App is now available on Google Play and provides a simple method for generating as many effective improvement ideas as you need. This is the same basic method that I describe in my book Effective Continuous Improvement  and is now available as a simple to use app. In essence it is a brainstorming focus tool. Press the focus button and you will be presented with a random continuous improvement focus. Brainstorm ideas around this focus with your team (whilst the timer is running) and there you go – a number of great ideas for you to prioritise and implement. The reason that this works so well is because of the focus. When your business runs out of its immediate problems to fix you need a different strategy. Very focused brainstorming helps you break past this problem and configuring the app to me...