One of the topics that I regularly write about is forming a structured and consistent approach to continuous improvement . There is a good phrase that can help you if you find that your improvement activities aren't where you want them to be: Are you doing it like you mean it?

When working with many of my clients I have to spend time with them initially to instill a degree of discipline and routine. If you've read my book ‘ Sunrise Meetings ’ then you will know exactly what I am talking about. This approach applies to any business type and on the way to the train station yesterday my taxi driver was talking about exactly this subject.

When implementing a business system, such as an ERP system , it is recommended that the maintenance of clean data is understood and defined. If you read my post about my parent’s fridge freezer then you will know about the long delay in receiving the product due to missing order information. Computer based systems work brilliantly when they are full of useful, relevant and accurate information. They don’t work as well when they have holes in their data. This is where the use of housekeeping routines can become really effective.

Over the Christmas my period I visited my parents. One of the discussions that came up was the long delivery time for a replacement fridge freezer that they had ordered online. As we were driving I spotted a store that belonged to this particular retail chain; we paid them a visit. It turned out that the delivery lead time is less than five days on average, so far my parents had waited over two months. The order my parents had placed was missing one piece of information and this had put the order into limbo. It was only after we made this enquiry that the missing piece of information was requested by the retailer. A two month delay for ten seconds of interaction!

There is a lot of talk about continuous improvement. There is a lot less action.

One of the drawbacks of process improvement is looking at why things don't work (or are sub-optimal). It can be negative and for some people this can wear them down over time. The successes we achieve as part of our process improvement work needs to be celebrated. I'm sure that your projects have yielded positive results and occasionally it is useful to stop and remember.

Is there a good time to plan your improvements ? I'm not sure if there is ever a good time to sit down and do planning; I just know what happens when you don't come up with some kind of a plan - drift. Apart from becoming more susceptible to the effect of the bumps you will inevitably hit, you don't follow up with what you should be doing. The noise of the working day becomes too much and you end up slowing down / stopping / going backwards.