Business Core · Operational Systems · Module
Continuous improvement
A rhythm for changing the process based on what it produces, rather than only when something breaks. The rhythm matters more than the method.
The idea
How it works
Improvement that only happens after failure is repair. Continuous improvement is the practice of changing things that are working, which requires a scheduled reason because nothing else will prompt it.
The most reliable version is small, frequent and made by the people doing the work. Large improvement programmes have a worse record than a monthly rhythm that nobody finds remarkable.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Fix a rhythm
Monthly or per cycle. The interval matters less than it being scheduled rather than triggered.
- 02
Let the people doing the work propose
They can see the friction. Improvement designed elsewhere addresses the documented process.
- 03
Change one thing and measure
Several simultaneous changes make it impossible to know which helped.
- 04
Update the standard
An improvement not written into the standard reverts within a quarter.
One level in
The components of continuous improvement
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The measurement
Before and after for each change, so effect can be distinguished from enthusiasm.
Learn
An improvement not written into the standard reverts within a quarter. Updating the standard is the change; the rest is a trial.
The other modules in operational systems
Process design
Mapping how work actually moves through the organisation, as opposed to how it is supposed to. The gap between the two is where most operational problems live.
LearnTooling
The systems and software the work runs on, and whether they fit the process or the process has bent to fit them.
LearnStandards and quality
What good output looks like, defined precisely enough that two people would agree. Without it, quality is a matter of who checked.
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