Continuous Process Improvement is not a new concept by any stretch and is something that we humans have been doing quite well since the very beginning. As human beings, continuous improvement is a big part of the reason that we are where we are. We observe how something works, change it for the better, then we do it all over again. Over the millennia we have managed to rack up some impressive improvements resulting in a far better existence and more comfortable lives with far less risk and much more capacity for enjoyment.
More recently though countless industrial movements have introduced and emphasized a variety of methods to drive continuous improvement and make it a bigger part of our organizational existence. For many companies, continuous improvement is their key to success, a competitive advantage and baked into their culture. Some methods are more invasive and difficult or complex to leverage while others are light weight and more easily adopted. We are well versed in all of these methods aiming to find the best fit for our client’s unique situations.
A simple scrum retrospective for example will serve a team well to empower them to drive improvements in how they work. There are dozens of other time-tested methods that improve how work is done and, in many cases, reduces risk as well.
| Method | Description | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Scrum Retrospective | One of the essential scrum ceremonies conducted each sprint. Gather as a team and reflect on what went well during the sprint and what could have been better. | – Highly collaborative – Frequent – Incremental change |
| Agility Health Radar | A quarterly super charged retrospective that can drive improvements beyond team boundaries. | – Highly collaborative – Data driven – Expert Facilitated |
| Flow Engineering | Popular modern method designed to focus on improving an individual process. Aims to eliminate waste related to extra steps, delays between steps and much more | – Expert Facilitated – Highly collaborative – Greater focus, clarity and alignment |
| 5 Whys | A method to determine the cause of an undesirable event or situation. By the time you get to the last Why you will have surfaced something to change that should have a positive impact reducing the chances to future occurrences. | – Highly collaborative – Event driven – Learning |
| Root Cause Analysis (RCA) | Typically done in response to an undesirable event like a deployment failure, outage, or breach. | – Highly collaborative – Event Driven – Learning |
Benefits of Continuous Process Improvement:
- Everyone involved wins when work is done faster, cheaper and more efficiently.
- Those involved typically learn something along the way increasing their capacity to contribute.
- As with a core agile concept small incremental changes instead of large invasive ones contribute more to the long game and with less disruption.
- When baked into the culture and leveraged from top to bottom a company accelerates the learning and creates a significant competitive gap.
- Once again, the people that are doing the work are the ones best equipped to improve it.