What’s all the Buzz About?
“Continuous improvement” is a phrase that is beginning to reach buzz-word status in the halls of business professionals, and yet, the techniques encapsulated by this term are critical to long-term business success. Continuous improvement is a management philosophy that focuses on generating incremental improvements over time; improvements can focus on individual products, services, or processes. It emphasizes the cumulative power of small changes over large-scale, disruptive transformations; the overall goal is promoting sustainable progress while maximizing adaptability.
Continuous improvement techniques are inherently more evolutionary than revolutionary, this methodical approach leverages the current state of play to organically give rise to a future state of play with better performance outcomes. The evolutionary nature of continuous improvement is the most compelling reason to incorporate it within your business. Even though your small business is exceedingly nimble, you more than likely do not have the resources (Time-Money-Tears) to suddenly change course on everything your business does daily. By leveraging an incremental approach, you can achieve significant business improvements with lower business risk.
Can’t I Just Improve My Business Once?
You might believe that the arguments above are valid, and yet you may still wonder “Why should I want to improve MY business on a continuous basis?”
- The historically anecdotal reason – You’re Either Growing or You’re Dying!
(See – https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslacouncil/2018/03/23/in-business-youre-either-growing-or-youre-dying/?sh=44ce5fab400d) - The commonsense reason – Change is Hard and Valuable, Embrace It!
(See – https://www.inc.com/debra-maldonado/why-path-of-least-resistance-is-rarely-ever-right-path-for-an-entrepreneur.html) - The principled reason – Adopt a Growth Mindset, For Your Own Sake!
(See – https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/04/13/the-importance-of-embracing-change-in-business/?sh=7a7131d58268)
No matter which of these reasons ring most true from your perspective, they are all individually sufficient to drive someone to earnestly embrace continuous improvement. Businesses will benefit most from the continuous improvement mindset by effectively institutionalizing one key pre-requisite: process discipline.
Process discipline is the consistent and rigorous adherence to well-defined, standardized processes within an organization. It means documenting steps, following established procedures, and maintaining a focus on achieving the best outcomes; even when faced with business challenges or worse – the human temptation to take shortcuts.
Process discipline is foundational to achieving continuous improvement because continuous improvement is inherently experimental. Since it is focused on achieving incremental change, continuous improvement relies on “trying” or “testing” a small tweak to the existing process to see if an improvement can be realized. Similarly, in the scientific method, experiments are performed to tease out the impact of changing one specific variable at a time. Instead of needing to fully reinvent the wheel, experimentation allows you to discover “what moves the needle” for a selected improvement target given the influence of a specific change. In the scientific method, only one variable should be tested at a time, and this is the crux of the relationship between continuous improvement and process discipline. Without process discipline, you cannot perform a controlled enough experiment to have confidence that the change has truly had the desired effect.
Merging discipline with experimentation seems counter-intuitive; that is, how can a business simultaneously be trying new things, and still get the job done?
The answer is that you need to become comfortable with walking a path as you are laying the paving stones. Doing this well requires the rigor and commitment that process discipline provides. Process discipline will allow you to hold static business-critical functions in their current configuration, while also providing the structure to properly isolate and experiment on an improvement target. To achieve the maximum impact from process discipline, the concept must first be thoroughly embedded within your organization’s culture, structure, and people.
So How Do I Get Started?
The most important thing to remember about continuous improvement and process discipline is that it takes time to make progress with these methods (no get-rich-quick scheme here); therefore, there is no better time to start than now! Here are 4 tips that you can begin using today to embed process discipline in your organization:
- Talk about process, process discipline, and continuous improvement with your whole team. Make these topics ubiquitous! Begin identifying methods that will be effective for your organization in achieving cultural instantiation, structural adoption, and personal inspiration of these concepts.
- Write descriptions of process (or anything else you are keen on improving) early and often! The more you write and correspondingly edit the description of what you are seeking to improve, the better your focus and understanding of the goals or opportunities will become. This can include a step-by step standard operating procedure (SOP), flow-charts, diagrams, portraits, a definition of done, customer experience charter, etc. Writing makes things manifest in your mind differently than if you skipped the writing.
- Achieve both peer review, and lay review in your business!
- Peer review – Generates feedback from professionals with domain expertise similar to or the same as the domain from which the reviewed content was created. Use this method to ensure content is accurate to current domain best-practices or state of art.
- Lay review – Generates feedback from professionals outside the domain(s) from which the reviewed content was created, but familiar with the overall operation of your business. Use this method to gain perspectives outside the scope of what a domain expert might notice, assume about, or take for granted.
- Rapid not fast – Experimental iterations should be made rapidly, not fast. The distinction between the definition of each of these words calls back to the value of process discipline.
- Rapid iteration is tightly planned and closely monitored, it requires discipline to achieve the appropriate level of planning and measurement to succeed with continuous improvement.
- Fast iteration is sloppy and un-monitored, fast almost always indicates a lack of appropriate discipline.
The path to sustainable business growth is paved with continuous improvement and cemented by process discipline. Embracing change, adopting a growth mindset, and fostering a culture of experimentation are essential strategies for thriving in today’s dynamic business landscape. Remember, incremental progress takes time, but the rewards of a disciplined, adaptable, and continuously improving organization are boundless. Why wait for the future when you can begin your improvement journey today!
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