When a business is struggling to achieve its business objectives then a review of the standards agreed in the business can make a radical change. Sometimes this change can take place rapidly. One of the simplest agreements we can make is how long a part of the business will take to respond to customers. This gives the people in the business a standard to focus on and (hopefully) the customers a better quality of service. Defining the key parts of the business process and looking at how they affect the achievement of the business objectives can tell you how each part needs to perform. Once this contribution is understood a standard can be set for its performance. This might be lead time, delivery performance, error rate etc.. Having standards is of course a benchmark for beginning your continuous improvement adventure. Once you achieve the standards initially agreed you can ask the question 'how far can we go with improving this business?' Agreeing standards in

If you search Google for the term 'lean' you can find a huge amount of resources about this subject. At its simplest it is a business improvement methodology / philosophy but this seems to get missed and so businesses head off looking for some mysterious set of tools that will transform their business when in actual fact it is more likely to be an attitude that delivers the improvements. I once heard a highly respected business man state that 'lean is awful'. He was   referring to the cost cutting and vicious approaches that are often associated with lean. He then went on to talk about doing business 'simpler, faster and better', which sounds like a really good summary of lean. Many things are done in the name of lean, many of which are just not accurate. Some businesses get hung up on the methodology, don't try to shoe horn a solution just because it's from the lean toolbox. Use the right tool for the issue at hand, don't get hung up on the

So many businesses rely on their computer systems to provide accurate and meaningful information. In many cases their databases are riddled with holes, or even worse, incorrect information. Bad data often leads to the users creating sub systems to cope with the lack of confidence, which can create other problems including wasted time.  If you find that the data in your organisation is unreliable then don't keep quiet. Ensure that the offenders know that their data collection / input methods aren't acceptable and keep supporting them until the situation changes. Find out why the data is so bad. There may be an educational element, they may not fully understand what is required and some quick adjustments can make a big difference to the quality of data. When you do have reliable information available to you make sure that the data is used so that people value good data. If you're not going to use the information to help drive your business forwards then what is t

Kaizen is a term that is often bandied about within continuous improvement circles and by lean manufacturing experts. Kaizen is amazing, but quite often one of the more subtle aspects is often overlooked. Taking tiny steps is at the heart of the kaizen approach, a stance taken to help people overcome procrastination when projects or tasks look too complicated. When someone is faced with a large task, a proposition that will take far too long to complete in their eyes, procrastination can kick in. When we take the same task and look for the smallest and simplest way to get the task started then the resistance to the work usually disappears. This is one of the most powerful uses for kaizen - find the tiniest step. If new habits need to be formed in the workplace then you can use the same approach - find the simplest way and smallest way to perform part of the habit required. People gain momentum as their confidence increases and so what may seem a pointless tiny step could well be th

Have you ever noticed that from time to time some really big jobs crop up? They take an inordinate amount of time and you wonder where they come from. A common reason is that small bits of maintenance don't get performed, over time this issue compounds until one day something crashes to a halt. Finding the small regular maintenance activities can pay off in the long run if they are incorporated into a daily or weekly routine of some kind. Data bases and computer systems that are used to manage the day to day activities in your business are a great place to perform small chunks of maintenance. If your data becomes obsolete or can't be used to make decisions then it will be bypassed. If you continue along this path you may end up creating a sub-system of working rather than resolving the original problem. Keep your data bases and computer based systems (including the storage of files) organised and current through small acts of maintenance (and computer housekeeping!). When y

Many business improvement projects are embarked upon when some of the basics in a business are not being catered for. These projects are unlikley to work. The basics have to be in place first - the frills come second. When we ignore the fundamentals of a business little cracks appear in the business. Over time these cracks get bigger and bigger until something significant happens. For those of you who are into root cause problem solving you will know that this occurs only too often. However, if we fix the basics, we can prevent the occurrence of a 'show stopper'. When projects are designed to improve the finer aspects of how a business works it is always a good opportunity to make sure that all of the basics are in place already. I'm sure that you have heard countless 'house' analogies about weak foundations. Are there things in your business that aren't quite right that need to be tackled head on? By all means do the other tweaks later on. Are there patte

There is so much richness available to you when you have a face to face meeting that when you see systems being created that avoid this you may wonder why it has been done. Sometimes, the gain in efficiency is fantastic for the business.   However, at other times the lack of face to face contact can be detrimental to the business. When you meet face to face there is the ability to pick up on the nuances of the discussion and come to a decision quickly. When the same approach is tried via e-mail it can sometimes take a much longer time to come to agreement. Face to face can tell you a lot of information. Timings can become skewed when the discussions aren't in real time (as in a meeting). Often referred to as silos, work moves silently from one work station to another and what could take minutes in a formalised meeting can take days or weeks through other means. Face to face can speed up decision making for critical elements of the business. The ability to remind and re