Every business leader we talk to says that they would like to achieve continuous improvement. We’ve never heard one yet say, “Nah, who needs that?” But, strangely, not every organization has implemented a structure to support improvement or worked to develop a culture that values it.

That seems odd, right?

It turns out that this isn’t the result of leaders who are stupid or lazy. There are a lot of ways to rationalize against the effort and investment it takes to make using a continuous improvement cycle part of everyday operations. But if you press on these ideas a bit, you’ll find that they deflate under pressure. Here are a few that we see quite a bit.

Lean manufacturing is a business methodology that is based on tools and techniques implemented at Toyota in their post-WWII efforts to improve the quality of its automobiles. They called it simply "The Toyota Production System" and “The Toyota Way.” Other manufacturers recognized the success the company enjoyed and applied the approach. Visits to Toyota to observe Lean manufacturing in action are common to this day.

The beauty of Lean is that it can be applied to almost any type of organization. Its pillars of continuous improvement and respect for people are universally relevant. Today, Lean is used in healthcare, high-technology, construction, education, services, and government.

You know that Lean software would help your organization implement more opportunities for improvement, eliminate waste, sustain improvement, and get more people involved in positive change. You know that the investment will reap significant returns by increasing and calculating the impact of improvement work. Your CEO, on the other hand, hasn’t quite seen the light.

That’s OK. Investing in technology to support Lean is a big step, and it isn’t free, so a bit of reluctance is natural. In most cases, the key to convincing top executives that Lean software will be worth it is to stay away from feature/function discussions and focus on their top-of-mind concerns. The practical advantages of Lean software like streamlined communication, document management, and automated alerts aren’t what typically gets CEOs excited.

Here’s what does.

The good old suggestion box for collecting employee ideas for improvement has been around for decades, if not even longer. Employers know that not every person is willing to speak up publicly when they see an opportunity for good change, so a point of collection for these ideas makes a lot of sense.

Like everything else these days, the suggestion box is migrating from the analog realm to the digital one with more companies opting for an online approach.

Is moving your suggestion box online the way to increase employee engagement and get more great ideas for improvement?

The approach certainly has some advantages.

We’ve yet to run into an organization that doesn’t want to find ways to improve. Everyone wants to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, get more efficient, and maximize revenue generation.

The difference between organizations that are successful at achieving these objectives and becoming better over time, and those that fail to make progress, often comes down to the structure upon which improvement initiatives are built.

That’s why choosing the right continuous improvement system is so important, but how do you tell them apart? Most people don’t make this type of investment very often, so it can be a challenge to select the best one for your organization.

Your organization may have some unique needs that should be considered, but almost every situation calls for evaluating continuous improvement systems based on technical infrastructure, features, and vendor support.

For more help on this topic, download this improvement software comparison matrix. Fill in who has what features, decide how important each is to you, and objectively calculate which platform will best suit your needs. Download it here.

We’ve had lots of great conversations with our clients over the last few weeks about the successes they’ve seen in 2018 and their plans to make 2019 even better. We are often asked what additional continuous improvement techniques we would recommend that they add in the new year to further challenge the team and maximize the impact of positive change.

One that we recommend to everyone who isn’t already using it is an online idea board. Even organizations that currently use a physical idea board can benefit immensely by taking the concept online. Here are the top 10 reasons we’re so confident that a digital idea board is the right way to go.

1. It is accessible, anytime from anywhere

When you implement an online idea board, you take all of the friction out of submitting or working on opportunities for improvement. People who spend time working away from the office can participate as if they were sitting right there. I don’t know about you, but sometimes my best ideas hit me when I’m driving home from work or singing in the shower. With an online idea board your team doesn’t have to remember to submit the thought the next time they are in the office, they can do it right away. The best digital boards even have mobile applications to make it even easier.

Whenever I think about the process of buying software two quotes, come to mind. The first is, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The second is from Henry Ford on the invention of the car. He famously said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” These lines explain why buying software is so complicated. If you don’t know what’s possible, it’s hard to know if you’ve found the best solution.

Change management software is something that many organizations are looking to implement for the first time, so it’s no surprise that many of the people we chat with don’t really know what they should be looking for. They wonder if regular project management software is sufficient - as well as what sets the most complete solutions apart.

We want to help. This post will break down the capabilities and technical requirements of change management software into critical categories and identify the specific functionality you should consider. We’ve also put it all into a spreadsheet that you can use to compare solutions and determine the essential items for your organization.

Download the comparison worksheet here.

Hoshin Kanri is a Lean technique for strategic planning. The goal is to get everyone rowing in the same direction, at the same time, to achieve an organization’s breakthrough objectives in a 3-5 year timeframe. This is accomplished by aligning strategy, tactics, and daily operations.

Developing a strategy and effectively executing it are two very different things. In order to be successful with such a long-term proposition, leaders need access to the right tools. Every organization that uses Hoshin planning does so in a unique way, but we’ve found four Hoshin planning tools that are frequently used by teams that get results.

Strategy deployment, often known in Lean circles as Hoshin Kanri or Policy Deployment, is a technique for ensuring that the strategic goals and objectives are the drivers of every activity throughout the organization. Strategy deployment software supports this effort by serving as the management platform for projects related to the goals. This post covers the benefits and capabilities of the best strategy deployment solutions.

The Lean business management methodology prizes an optimized flow of value to the customer with as little waste as possible. Waste is defined as anything that the customer would not volunteer to pay for. Lean practitioners have identified eight types of waste and work tirelessly to find and minimize them.

Lean is a popular approach across many industries because it is easy to understand and effective at improving business results when it is properly executed. Lean got its start in manufacturing, but today is used in healthcare, construction, software development, retail, professional services, education, and other industries.

Specialized Lean project management software has been developed to help organizations dedicated to the approach get the most out of it. Every organization has its own reasons for investing in technology to support Lean, but most find three substantial advantages.