I see two different types of businesses that engage with Continuous Improvement . Those that focus on problems only. Those that have an ability to move towards excellence. The challenge that I see, for those organisations that want to move from category 1 to category 2, is depicted in the diagram below: Being able to know what to do once you get past your immediate problems makes a huge difference to the overall effectiveness of your continuous improvement efforts and your eventual business performance. This kind of shift requires you to develop a continuous improvement strategy for your business that is based on more than just fixing today's problems. Here are some quick ideas for you: You could take generic challenges and decide to undertake root cause problem solving on them and not stop with your improvement projects until the challenge has gone. Use your existing business metrics as a springboard for continuous improvement projects and use them as