You know how it goes... The 'team' get all fired up and create their improvement plan. Finally, you think, your business is going to move up a gear. And then it happens.
When I am working with clients I often hear them talking about potential improvement ideas. But, when I ask them where they keep their improvement ideas they can't show me!
I get it. No, I really do. People are busy. Are you busy? I certainly know the feeling. However, when someone tells me that progress is not being made on their improvement projects because they haven't got time it makes me question what they do have time for.
When you embark on making changes to your business Planning is required. If you recall the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and Act) cycle, you will know just how important this is to effective change management . There are a lot of businesses, however, who get too bogged down with their Planning and become ineffective with their Doing.
Some businesses haven't grasped the idea of continuous improvement including a progression of small incremental changes. These businesses don't do continuous improvement, they do one off improvements. Their improvements are small in number but large in terms of change. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
Have you ever had that feeling that the change you are trying to make in your business is the wrong one? There sometimes comes a point, when your improvement just isn't making progress, that this thought crosses your mind.
One of the challenges I hear from businesses is with regards to sustaining 5S. If you haven't come across the 5S approach for improving workplace organisation it really is worth reading up on.