If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can read it here!
Tips for starting to apply continuous improvement:
- Build the feeling of a “safe harbor,” always leaving a channel open for suggestions, especially with those who are involved in the execution.
- Encourage collaboration across teams and roles. Get the “best player” of the team to set the stage and encourage sharing different perspectives. Take a look at this Article to discover how Design Thinking could help you on these aspects.
- Don´t be afraid to change processes. If you’re obtaining results that are not what you expected, you might need to do things differently.
- Focus on customer success and the value of your product. Don’t isolate your thinking on what the market or customer said they need. Make sure you hear the “Voice of the Customer,” but don’t stop there, keep digging and search for the differentiation through added value. Having a Discovery phase will help you to frame the problem better and build an accurate product for your customers.
- Go to the root of the problem, don’t focus on blaming someone or the visible apparent symptoms; search for the underlying reason, and fix it with the team.
This example of a Continuous Improvement Cycle will help you to start including the mindset across any process, business area, teams, and personal thinking.
Now, just start!
Establish clear objectives to pursue, as well as a timeline, and define how you will measure these: OKRs may help you. Make small experiments and test changes on behavior, then apply this new knowledge. You will probably make lots of mistakes, but facing these obstacles, problems, and disappointments along the way is always a learning opportunity. Going through this path isn’t easy at all, but in the long term it will help to learn from your errors, bring maturity to the organization and individuals, and impulse you all to be even better!