Continuous Improvement Training Course - 1 Day

Continuous improvement is a system of good attitudes, ideas and practices which, when combined and implemented, leads to a constant progression in every aspect of your organisation's products, services and methods.

The principle underpinning continuous improvement is simple: big things can be seen as the combination of a larger number, of small things.

In the natural world, evolution works by this same principle: big change is achieved by means of small change.
Continuous improvement is an evolutionary progression, which means it relies, not on making huge, expensive and disruptive changes every once in a while, but rather, making innumerable smaller, easier improvements, practically every day.

We will discuss, what would happen if we all improved a tiny bit, every day.

Continuous improvement is important because we live in a competitive world. Everywhere there are people providing alternative products and services, that are in direct competition with yours. To live long and prosper, we must keep moving forward.

What if we fail to improve, and instead, we just repeated what we are doing now, for the next five years?

Failure is an option, and many organisations do fail. Partly because they become complacent. Many people think they have a winning formula. A set way of doing things, that they believe is the best way.

But what is best today, is second-best tomorrow. Within a year, practically everything we know now will be outdated.

It is important to keep progressing, just to keep up with the current rate of change.
How fast is your industry changing?

Continuous improvement suggests that everyone in the organisation is empowered to improve the system. Improvement is not just the responsibility of “the management”.

Continuous improvement suggests that we can all “start where we stand”, and make whatever small improvements are possible within our own sphere of influence.

Right now, name one small step you could make.

Now we get into the details of continuous improvement. It is based upon five key concepts: purpose, plan, action, feedback, change.

We will take them one at a time and investigate their inner secrets.

The first step to making improvements is to have a goal-focused mind.

The alternative is having a drifter mentality.

What are the long-term consequences of drifting, with no clear goals for a better future?

Continuous improvement is not based upon luck. It is based upon systematic and detailed planning. The alternative to planning is not planning, simply reacting to circumstances as they occur.

Why do you think so many people don’t plan ahead?
What are the benefits of having a definite plan, to guide actions?

The plan generates many possible actions. Not all of them can be done today. So we prioritise our actions according to their value and logical sequence.

How do you currently prioritise your time?
Could you make any improvements in your current methods?

We will show you how to prioritise more effectively.

Some people say, “No news is good news.” They are wrong. No news is not good news. No news is, no news. No news only means we cannot be sure of what is going on.

Feedback is important information and gathering it is a crucial aspect of your service.
Could we make any improvements in the gathering and interpretation of feedback results?

The continuous improvement cycle means we need to be willing to look honestly at what we are doing and ask, “what is not good?”. The ability to be honest with yourself and others, and not to evade problems, omissions, errors and inefficiencies, is important.

Equally, we must be willing to bite the bullet and make changes to our current systems, even if we are comfortable with them.

What is there in your current set up, which is deficient, ineffective, old fashioned and needs to be updated?

Continuous improvement is not only about improving what is bad, it is also about improving upon the best you have.

Let us assume that even if your service is the best in the world, it is not perfect, because, nothing is perfect.

We know that we will not ever reach perfection, but the attempt is worth the effort.
What is the best part of your current performance, and how could you make it even better?

Continuous improvement is not like going on a diet. It is not something that we do for a little while and then, when we hit target-weight, we go back to normal eating.

Continuous improvement is continuous.
It is a way of life, a belief system, a habit pattern, a success formula.
It is easier to do than not to do, because failure is harder to deal with, than success.

To be successful, keep believing in continuous improvement.
What can we do to make sure this training sticks?