For all companies, continuous improvement is vital.  We and our companies need to be better today than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we are today.  Unfortunately, most improvement initiatives (including most lean kaizen events) fail.  They fail because they are too top-down, too all-encompassing, and too difficult for the employee.

To succeed at continuous improvement, our companies need to make it easier for the individual employee to improve.  An improved process does not work if the employee still does things the way that they have always done it.

To make continuous improvement easier and more successful, we need to:

Start Small: The easiest way to get started is to start small.  Small, continuous improvements will make a huge difference within a short time frame when they are continuous.  The lean expert, Paul Akers, has the concept of 2 Second Lean.  What small, two second changes can each of us make to improve our efficiency and effectiveness at our jobs?  What small, two second change can we make in a process or procedure?

Focus First on Eliminating and Simplifying:  What can we do to make the individual employees’ job easier?  If we normally collect five pieces of information or require that they review four reports, can we only collect three pieces of information and require that they review only two reports.  We need to focus on only the essential.  What are the 2 – 3 things that we can stop doing right now to make someone’s job easier and to not waste their time?

Involve the Employees Doing the Work: We need to ask our employees about what seems like a waste of time, what is annoying to do, what they think can be simplified or eliminated.  Then, we should ask them to share some best practices that they have done to make their jobs easier.  With this, we can then simplify and streamline further eliminating needless work and getting everyone in a department performing tasks in the most effective way. 

Automate: Only after we have eliminated, simplified, and improved should we automate the process or task.  This also applies to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.  As Bill Gates wrote:

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

Create and Distribute Best Practices: All positions or significant tasks should have a best practice guide (1 – 2 pages maximum) that can be reviewed by employees in those positions before they perform the task.  These should be written by the employees doing the task and need to be short and written in plain English. 

Use Checklists: For complex tasks, have the employee put together a checklist for how to complete the task that can be used and followed.  As Lean guru, Shigeo Shingo, writes:

“We use checklists so as not to forget that we have forgotten.”

Short, Simple and Readily Available: All best practices, checklists, teaching documents, and reminders need to be short, simple, and indexed with key words so that they are readily accessible and thus easy to use.

Think Bigger: Only now, that we have improved and gotten everyone performing best practices on the small, local basis, can we move out of the small realm and think bigger.  How can we rationalize or improve on a larger, broader, and more global basis?

Repeat: Continuous improvement is continuous.  We must never stop trying to improve.