Continual Improvement
Aligns the organization’s practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of services, service components, practices, or any element involved in the efficient and effective management of products and services.
What are the seven steps of the Continual Improvement Model?
- What is the vision?
- Where are we now?
- Where do we want to be?
- How do we get there?
- Take action.
- Did we get there?
- How do we keep the momentum going?
(Repeat)
What is the vision?
Business vision, mission, goals and objectives.
- Know the high-level direction.
- Describe planned improvement.
- Identify stakeholders and roles.
- Agree upon the expected value.
Where are we now?
Perform baseline assessments.
- What the user’s perception of the value is for the service.
- What existing skills and competencies our workforce has for these services.
- What processes and procedures are involved in delivering those services.
Where do we want to be?
Define measurable targets.
Realistic goals of where we want our services to be. They may be lower than our overall vision.
How do we get there?
Define the improvement plan.
- Create a plan.
- Break the plan into smaller workable portions.
- Check progress after each iteration of the plan.
- Adjust as needed.
Take action.
Execute improvement actions.
This can be done using the waterfall or agile approach.
Did we get there?
Evaluate metrics and KPIs.
- Conduct the current state assessment again.
- Determine a new baseline.
- Determine next steps needed to reach our goals.
How do we keep the momentum going?
Attempt to continue the improvement gains across the organization by restarting the process.
