The continuous improvement (CI) journey for most of us is an unknown path. We concoct our plans to improve how our businesses work and then navigate the obstacles that we find as we begin the improvements. The feeling of being a little lost on our journeys, with our plans not turning out the way we expected, is normal. Many of my clients feel this way.
Often I’ll get into this conversation with them. When we do have this conversation I often find myself reassuring them that this experience isn’t unusual and it isn’t because they have ‘done it wrong’.
The CI journey isn’t straightforward
Of course it isn’t.
If it was, continuous improvement would just happen by magic. If you feel that the journey isn’t straightforward way, please take some comfort in these words.
This is also why the PDCA cycle exists. If you aren’t familiar with PDCA, it stands for Plan, Do, Check and Act. Explained slightly further:
- Plan – Come up with a set of tasks to achieve your goal.
- Do – Carry out some of the tasks.
- Check – Stop and review the results.
- Act – Decide how you want to carry on, so that you correct your course and reach your goal.
Try this simple rule for your journey
The simple rule is this:
Keep stepping in the right direction and don’t stop.
Use the PDCA cycle to correct your course and steer towards your objective. Don’t worry about being off course, just keep correcting and moving forward.
Rotating through the PDCA cycle frequently helps you to keep on track. Performing a ‘check’ review just as you near the end of your project is probably too late. Little and often is the best way to use this way of thinking.
One victory at a time
Extending this strategy, focusing on one victory at a time is a really powerful (and simple) way of tackling CI.
Put your available energies into one improvement goal. Achieve it. Then focus on the next.
It is tempting to try and tackle several improvement projects at once but your existing workload will have a big impact. If you get this wrong there is a good chance that you’ll just end up with several loose ends.
Relish the progress made
Occasionally look back and see how far you have travelled. The day to day can seem slow and frustrating… which sounds like the two steps forward, one step back of most continuous improvement journeys!
You can view the journey made so far through your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Use them to both inform the journey (do more of this, less of the other) and to look back on to see how far you have come.
If you feel that you haven’t made enough progress in that time you have the opportunity to direct more time to your improvements, focus on fewer goals at any one time or re-evaluate your priorities.
I hope that you keep stepping in the right direction. Seeing the results from CI projects gives me enormous satisfaction and I hope it does for you too.
And, I hope that if you have been feeling lost on your own CI journey that this article has energised you to keep on going. It is worth it!
