Many businesses measure their on time delivery performance by counting how many orders leave their business on the same date / time as agreed with their customer. That makes sense, and is how most businesses do it, shown in the diagram below: There is another way, a way that can help you to pin point where and when things aren't working properly. By measuring the start of the process you increase the chance of the process delivering on time (as in, you rarely catch up when you start late!). It's a small change in perspective when it comes to measuring on time delivery, but it gives you a chance to correct things before it is too late. Of course you can still measure the output, but by placing your focus on the start of the process you not only increase your chances of delivering on time but start the conversation around what needs to happen in order to launch your processes properly. The final results won't turn up by magic, but they can appear with

A team member at one of my clients was quizzing me the other day, he was struggling to share his vision of an improvement with the rest of his team. He needed them to get onboard, so that they could help in any way they could, but was struggling with how to arrange his thoughts. I gave him the following structure, and I thought that I would share it with you too via this blog.

What happens when you identify a continuous improvement opportunity for your business? Does it happen instantly, or does it need a little prodding?

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!

A question I am often asked is this - "am I on the right path?" This question is usually posed by someone who is going through a period of change and feels that they aren't doing it right, because the actions don't seem to be following some prescribed / perceived route...

One of my clients got their kamishibai board in place today and I thought I'd share a quick photo of it. This one is designed to help a team manage, and balance, their workload through a fixed period of time. It's a nice variation on the theme. Giles Johnston Author of Business Process Re-Engineering   and creator of the   ' Making It Happen '   online course for improving continuous improvement skills.

Today I was working with some of my client's staff on a 5S orientated project. In fact we were gearing up to implement a component Kanban for a busy factory, but the area needed to be organised first. So, we used the 5S approach, which we all remember as:

We seem to feel so much pressure when we come to improve our businesses. Admittedly our actions are scrutinised and our results are inspected. You can understand why so many people don't attempt to improve...

If you want to improve the effectiveness of your business processes then pick up a free copy of my book ' Sunrise Meetings ' for the Kindle e-reader. It is free from today until the end of play on the 20th of March 2016. Links: Amazon.com -  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008AKS0MM Amazon.co.uk -  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008AKS0MM Enjoy, Giles Giles Johnston Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' online course for improving continuous improvement skills.

I was being quizzed the other day about different improvement strategies that can be applied to businesses. They wanted to know what I thought they should focus their energies on. I knew the person asking me the question was expecting me to say 'Lean' or 'Six Sigma'. I paused for a moment and then answered:

My book 'Kamishibai Boards' is free today (9th March 2016) until Friday (11th March 2016) for the Amazon Kindle. You can get a free reading app for your smartphone or tablet if you don't own one of their e-readers. A Kamishibai Board is a fantastically simple idea to help establish routines within a business and are great if you want to embed new processes, make 5S stick, or help to develop more consistent ways of working. You can download your free copy here:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0073FWAC6 Enjoy, Giles Johnston Author of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' online course for improving continuous improvement skills.

Do you try to make improvements on your own? It can be very natural for many of us to go about making changes in isolation, the fear of failure lessens and ideas aren't shouted down. But, there can be a limitation to this approach.

A lot of people will tell me that part of the reason that their improvements fail is because they don't have time to come up with a proper plan. However, what they are also implying is that they have time to work in an inefficient manner longer term. That can't be right can it?