[Update] What Is Continuous Improvement? Definition and Tools | continuous – NATAVIGUIDES

In Lean, continuous improvement is like a religion. Although it seems like a simple thing to achieve, leaders and teams who are not familiar with process improvement techniques have a hard time sustaining it.

To implement this mindset, you need to have a clear understanding of what exactly is continuous improvement, what principles you need to follow and check some of the best practices.

The Continuous Improvement Model

The term continuous improvement can be very abstract if not placed in a specific context. Explained shortly, it is a never-ending strive for perfection in everything you do. In Lean management, continuous improvement is also known as Kaizen.

Kaizen originated in Japan shortly after the end of the Second World War. It gained massive popularity in manufacturing and became one of the foundations of Toyota’s rise from a small carmaker to the largest automobile manufacturer on the planet.

In the context of the Lean methodology, continuous improvement seeks to improve every process in your company by focusing on enhancing the activities that generate the most value for your customer while removing as many waste activities as possible.

There are three types of waste in Lean:

• Muda – The seven wastes
• Mura – The waste of unevenness
• Muri – The waste of overburden

Muda consists of 7 major process wastes: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, defects.

Removing all of them completely is nearly impossible but focusing on minimizing their negative effects on your work is crucial for successfully implementing continuous improvement.

Mura is caused by unevenness or inconsistency in your process. It is responsible for many of the 7 wastes of Muda. Mura stops your tasks from flowing smoothly across your work process and therefore gets in your way of reaching continuous flow.

Muri is a major problem for companies that apply push systems. When you assign too much work to your team, you place unnecessary stress on both your team and process.

Muri is usually a result of Mura, and if you want continuous improvement to become part of your culture, you need to focus on getting rid of those wastes.

Adopting Continuous Improvement – Tools and Techniques

Understanding the theory behind it is the first step in applying continuous improvement to your management culture. To set yourself up for continuous improvement, you need to create a suitable environment within your company.

In Lean management, there are three major approaches for achieving continuous improvement:

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

The model Plan-Do-Check-Act is the most popular approach for achieving continuous improvement.

Also known as the Deming circle (named after its founder, the American engineer William Edwards Deming), it is a never-ending cycle that aims to help you improve further based on achieved results.

It was first developed for quality control but, in time, became an instrument for achieving continuous improvement.

In the planning phase, you need to establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results per the expected output (the target or goals).

Setting output expectations is a key to achieving continuous improvement because the accuracy of the goals and their completeness is a major part of the process of improving.

It is recommended to start on a small scale so you can test the effects of the approach.

The second phase is “Do”. It is straightforward as you need to execute what you’ve laid down during the process’s planning step.

After you’ve completed your objectives, you need to check what you’ve achieved and compare it to what you’ve expected. Gather as much data as possible and consider what you can improve in your process to achieve greater results next time.

If the analysis shows that you’ve improved compared to your previous project, the standard is updated, and you need to aim for an even better performance next time.

In case you’ve failed to improve or have even achieved worse results compared to the past, the standard stays as it was before you started your last project.

Root Cause Analysis

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a technique practiced in Lean management that allows you to achieve Kaizen by showing you the root causes of your process’s problems.

It is an iterative practice that drills down into a problem by analyzing what caused it until you reach the root of the negative effect. It can be considered root only if the final negative effect is prevented for good after the cause is removed.

To apply RCA for continuous improvement, you need to perform a thorough analysis of the problem.

For example, let’s say that you are leading a software development team. When you released the latest update of your product, your support team was bombarded with bug reports from customers.

You begin to look for the root cause starting from the top of the problem.

You investigate how your QA team allowed for this to happen and discover that they failed to run all the necessary tests on the software.

Afterward, you look into what caused that and learn that the development team provided them with the features that were to be released at the last possible minute.

Looking into the cause of that, you find out that the developers finished the majority of features right before they submitted them for quality assurance.

Digging into the cause of that, you find out that your development team took more time than you have planned to develop the features in the first place.

Investigating the reason behind that, you discover that your team was inefficient because each developer simultaneously worked on a few features. Therefore, instead of giving features one by one to QA, they submitted a batch that was too large to process on short notice.

Analyzing why this happened, you realize that you haven’t placed any regulations on the amount of work that can be in progress simultaneously and did not ensure the evenness of your process.

Reaching this point, you conclude that the root cause of the bug problem is Mura (the waste of unevenness).

To achieve continuous improvement, we suggest you analyze each problem’s root cause and experiment with solutions.

Often, problems may turn out to be far more complex than you think, and the RCA would require a few iterations before preventing the negative effect from ever happening again.

If you are not sure how to perform a root cause analysis, we suggest looking into the 5 Whys for determining root causes.

Applying Lean Kanban

To continuously improve your process, you need to visualize what needs to be improved clearly.

If you lack visibility, you’ll be able to improve from time to time but won’t be able to spot symptoms of a problem before it is too late.

When Toyota was looking for a way to do that, they developed Kanban as a system for improving the workflow efficiency of the production process.

Eventually, Kanban was adapted for knowledge work and managed to help thousands of teams to achieve continuous improvement. The method relies on six core practices for minimizing the wastes in your process:

• Visualize your workflow
• Eliminate interruptions
• Manage flow
• Make process policies explicit
• Create feedback loops
• Improve collaboratively

To visualize your workflow, the method relies on whiteboards for mapping every step of your process. The board is divided by vertical lines forming columns for the different stages.

A basic Kanban board consists of three columns: Requested, In Progress, Done.

Each task that your team is working on is hosted on a Kanban card (originally in the form of a post-it note) and needs to pass through all the stages of your workflow in order to be considered complete.

Kanban boards allow you to monitor your process’s evenness and can be a serious weapon for minimizing Mura.

Besides, they show you the amount of work that every person on your team has and can help you prevent overburden (Muri) by allowing you to delegate tasks according to your team’s capacity.

Finally, you can monitor the pace at which work is progressing across your workflow and achieve continuous improvement of your workflow efficiency.

For the sake of eliminating interruptions, Kanban relies on limiting the work that can be in progress simultaneously. The goal is to eliminate multitasking, which is nothing more than a constant context switch between assignments and only harms productivity.

With the help of Kanban, you can manage the flow of work in your process. To ensure an even process, you need to be aware of where work gets stuck and take action to alleviate the bottlenecks in your process. This way, you can experiment with the different steps of your workflow and keep improving continuously.

In Lean management, continuous improvement is a group activity. Therefore you need to make sure that your team understands the common goal and why their part of the process is important.

By making process policies explicit, you’ll encourage your team members to take more responsibility and take ownership of their process.

For positive change to happen, there needs to be a constant flow of knowledge between you and your team.

The Kanban board itself is a great feedback loop generator because it makes it visible who is doing what at any time.

In combination with the widely adopted practice of holding daily stand up meetings between the team, you can continuously improve information sharing between individuals.

Other techniques that are part of the continuous improvement arsenal are the Gemba walk and the A3 report. The A3 report is a structured approach that helps you deal with problem-solving issues, while the Gemba walk encourages you to go and see where the real work happens. Both are extremely useful, and they can help you discover problematic parts in your workflow.

Bottom Line

Kaizen is a never-ending quest for perfection, but you’ll start feeling the benefits of continuous improvement on your business when your whole team takes it by heart.

Kanban and the other continuous improvement tools can help you with that because your team will obtain lots of knowledge about process improvement and workflow management. As a result, each individual will understand how your process works and how it can be improved.

In Summary

There are many ways to achieve continuous improvement. All of them have one thing in common – analyzing what can be done better compared to the past. You can sustain continuous improvement by:

• Minimizing the wastes in your process
• Creating a suitable environment for your team to improve
• Implementing the PDCA cycle
• Always looking for the root cause of existing and potential problems
• Apply the Kanban method for workflow management

March 27, 2019

Discover:

What is continuous learning?

Continuous learning is the process of learning new skills and knowledge on an on-going basis. This can come in many forms, from formal course taking to casual social learning. It involves self-initiative and taking on challenges. Continuous learning can also be within an organization, or it can be personal, such as in lifelong learning.

Why is continuous learning important for organizations?

Staying competitive in today’s global marketplace means that organizations need to be innovative, adaptive, and ever-changing. Achieving this depends on the skill and knowledge of the workforce. But how do you get this kind of workforce to begin with?

To innovate, to try a new process, or to do something new all requires learning.

People need to learn new knowledge or skills in order to see things in a new light and take that next leap. When organizations do not support a continual process of learning, innovation does not happen, processes remain unchanged, and nothing new is ever accomplished.

Employees need to be able to challenge themselves in order to obtain new knowledge, ideas, and skills. Learning needs to be on a flexible, on-demand and continual basis in order to contribute this kind of cutting-edge performance.

Benefits of continuous learning

Benefits for the organization

Creating a learning culture within the organization is an effective way to improve performance and innovation, as mentioned earlier, but also employee satisfaction and retention. Here’s why:

1. Knowledge is power – The more employees know and the more they can do, the more they can contribute to the organization.
2. More cost effective – Investing in the development of employees is less expensive than rehiring and retraining new employees.
3. Show that employees are valued – Support of continuous learning indicates that employees are worth the investment and that the organization is genuine about employee career development.

Benefits for the individual

Continuously updating knowledge or skills can help an employee in both their professional life and personal life for a number of reasons. Here’s why:

1. Top Performer – Developing new skills and knowledge can increase personal performance or competence on the job.
2. Career development – Additional training, education, or skill development can help achieve goals for those pursuing a career path or wanting to rotate into a new position.
3. Licenses or Certifications – Pursuing additional learning is also important for those employees who need to obtain or update professional licenses or certifications.
4. Promotions or incentives – Spending time to learn a new skill or obtain new knowledge can benefit work performance and influence future promotion or financial incentives.
5. Personal enrichment – Often a person’s interests extend beyond the job they do on a daily basis. Pursuing extracurricular interests can lead to insight and developments that open the door to new, future opportunities.
6. Stay marketable – Staying current in the trends and advances of one’s profession can help an employee stay marketable in their profession should anything change.

Continuous learning examples

Let’s take a look at the different ways an employee can engage in continuous learning:

Formal learning

Formal learning includes the ways a learner can gain new knowledge and skills via learning initiatives that have already been pre-determined, organized and implemented for a specific learning purpose or goal. This can include:

• a university or college course
• training programs from within the organization
• external workshops or conferences
• e-Learning courses
• Mobile learning courses
• MOOC’s

Social learning

Social learning includes all the ways a learner interacts, discusses, collaborates and learns from others to increase knowledge or learn new skills. This can be both formal and informal, including:

• Discussion and collaboration on social media
• Finding blogs or other resources to gain deeper insight
• Working with other co-workers
• Coaching and mentoring
• On-the-job training

Self-directed learning

Obtaining a new skill or improving your knowledge and understanding of something does not have to be restricted to formal training or working with others. Self-directed learning can include:

• Researching and reading to gain a deep understanding of a topic.
• Listening to topic relevant podcasts or watching instructional videos
• Experimentation and exploration

What is the difference between lifelong learning and continuous learning?

Lifelong learning and continuous learning are often terms used interchangeably. They can sometimes have a slightly different meaning depending on the context. Let’s compare the differences below:

Lifelong learning

The term lifelong learning is geared more towards the individual level. It refers to someone who makes a long-term, voluntary commitment to learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge. A lifelong learner is someone who incorporates continuous learning as part of their lifestyle.

An example of lifelong learning could be someone who chooses to read about something new for one hour every day. This is a personal commitment for self-betterment or long-term improvement.

Continuous learning

The term continuous learning can also refer to someone who is committed to learning new skills or knowledge but is often used in a more temporary context or formal context.

An example of continuous learning could be someone who is taking an extra training course for their job. This is a formal commitment, sometimes temporary, that is taken on to achieve new skills.

How to build a continuous learning environment within the organization

Creating a supportive environment that encourages employees to engage in continuous learning takes commitment, resources, and coaching. Some employees will be self-motivated and will take up continuous learning on their own time, but the majority will not have the time or resources to do so.

Employees are typically focused on the job or tasks at hand and do not want to be seen as wasting time.

It is unrealistic to expect all employees to engage in continuous learning either during the work day or in their free time. This is a good starting point when figuring out how to start building a learning environment. Let’s take a look at some ideas on how to navigate this situation:

1. Continuous learning begins with leaders

When employees see that their Manager or Supervisor is fully engaged and supportive of learning and development initiatives, it creates an atmosphere that promotes continuous learning.

Sometimes it is difficult for employees to take time away from daily work tasks because there is an impression that management may not approve.

Show employees that it is important and valued by becoming a role model.

2. Create a learning plan

When continuous learning becomes part of the way a business runs, employees are more apt to engage in it. This means defining the business goals of what is hoped to be achieved and creating an actionable plan around how to support it.

Engaging in dialogue about continuous learning means that employees will not only see that the organization is genuine about supporting learning initiatives, but that efforts are being offered to make it a reality.

The plan can include what resources or support individuals maybe need or the types of learning that can be offered, such as mobile learning or mentoring.

3. Provide the resources and time for continuous learning

The main component of creating a learning environment is time and resources. These need to be available to employees.

This can come in all shapes and forms, depending on the needs of the organization, department, or individual employees.

Some ideas include:

• Establish a personal development plan with each employee to identify what they may want to learn in order to foster encouragement and initiative
• Hold Lunch & Learns during the lunch break to encourage employees to present and apply what they’ve learned
• Devote dedicated time to employees to engage in training or learning
• Attend team workshops or events
• Provide access to professional resources via subscriptions or memberships
• Provide access to online learning for self-paced courses
• Organize mentorship or coaching opportunities
• Create a learning “task-force” that enables employees to investigate and collaborate on a topic