In this first article on Continual Improvement, I'm
going to look at the considerations you need to think about when designing and introducing a systematic approach.
Most organisations are doing improvement to an extent whether because the organisation has a pervading quality improvement ethos or just because people notice that things need to be done differently and so change them. The principle of Continual Service Improvement (CSI) is not to introduce anything new, per se, but rather to improve the maturity of what is being done and how it is being done.
So, the first thing to understand is that you are not implementing something new, you are introducing an improved way of improving things. This will often get around some of the resistances that you might face from people who already believe that they're doing continual improvement and so resent the implication that they're not. It might also help with some of the funding issues which dog 'implementation initiatives' as gradual systematic improvement is what the organisation wants and needs (there may still be costs associated but they are generally easily palatable).
Since what you are trying to do is to create an easy, coordinated, common approach to improvement, enlist the support of key individuals. Create a stakeholder analysis which shows who might be able to help, who might resist, etc. and base your messages around this.
Leading on from changing the way you perceive the introduction of continual improvement and understanding who needs to be convinced, you need to craft the way you express, word or phrase any messages about the activities, actions and benefits of this (better) way of doing things. Even though you have accepted that continual improvement is already being done, perhaps in small, uncoordinated, pockets, if you tell people that there's a 'new sheriff in town' people will resist.
As Stephen Covey says "Seek first to understand, then to be understood", make sure you know what is currently being done before diving in, telling people what to do ... you never know, someone there might already be doing it in a way that you'd not thought of.
Most organisations are doing improvement to an extent whether because the organisation has a pervading quality improvement ethos or just because people notice that things need to be done differently and so change them. The principle of Continual Service Improvement (CSI) is not to introduce anything new, per se, but rather to improve the maturity of what is being done and how it is being done.
So, the first thing to understand is that you are not implementing something new, you are introducing an improved way of improving things. This will often get around some of the resistances that you might face from people who already believe that they're doing continual improvement and so resent the implication that they're not. It might also help with some of the funding issues which dog 'implementation initiatives' as gradual systematic improvement is what the organisation wants and needs (there may still be costs associated but they are generally easily palatable).
Since what you are trying to do is to create an easy, coordinated, common approach to improvement, enlist the support of key individuals. Create a stakeholder analysis which shows who might be able to help, who might resist, etc. and base your messages around this.
As Stephen Covey says "Seek first to understand, then to be understood", make sure you know what is currently being done before diving in, telling people what to do ... you never know, someone there might already be doing it in a way that you'd not thought of.
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