One of the most common barriers people face when trying to coordinate the continuous improvement efforts of groups of people across diverse departments and dispersed locations is the struggle of how to manage and improve communication. A flurry of emails is sent with requests and deadlines, meetings are spent giving endless updates, and it's hard to keep track of who is responsible for what. 

Software solutions for continuous improvement make the difference between a successful culture of continuous improvement and one that flounders and stalls out before ever really taking off. Communication is a critical element that such software solutions address. KaiNexus has been solving communication problems for our customers since day one, and we've recently released a variety of new features that bring our solution to a whole new level. 

Here are a few features that we’ve recently released that have improved communication for our customers:

1. Record updates, ask questions, and give answers straight from your email.
   
   KaiNexus has always understood the importance of keeping all communication regarding tasks and opportunities for improvement well organized – information can easily be lost if transferred through unrecorded means like phone calls, sticky notes, and emails. As such, the KaiNexus platform has long provided a means of communication that is recorded and maintained in one place, providing a single source of truth for all communication. 
   
   To give updates, ask questions, and record answers, KaiNexus users can enter a comment directly onto the opportunity for improvement or task at hand. At that time, the user can select to email the comment to others, so everyone is kept in the loop about what's going on. Recently, we’ve added the ability to respond to comments by simply replying to that email, which speeds up the response process and continues to maintain a real-time record of the conversation in the KaiNexus system.
2. Make sure no opportunities for improvement go unassigned for too long.
   
   When a user submits an opportunity for improvement into KaiNexus, their leader is notified so that they can assign the opportunity to someone to look into, work on, and resolve. It's important for leaders to acknowledge employee engagement right away, and KaiNexus helps by making sure nothing falls through the crack. If, for some reason, the leader doesn't promptly take action on the opportunity, their supervisor is notified that the opportunity is awaiting assignment. This ensures that submissions do not sit ignored for too long, and that employees remain motivated to submit their ideas and observations.
   
   We have recently added the ability for each customer organization to decide for themselves how long they'd like to let opportunities for improvement sit unaddressed. This can be customized at the organization level as well as for individual departments, allowing for the utmost flexibility that best fits individual workflow of the customer. 
3. Choose what you need to be notified about.
   
   We know that leaders are super busy, and it's hard to keep track of all of the improvement efforts that they're responsible for overseeing. That's why KaiNexus provides active notifications that keep leaders informed about the opportunities for improvement that they're interested in monitoring. While we've always made it easy for leaders to see what's going on in their own work areas, we've recently responded to customer requests to expand that visibility for more involved leaders. 
   
   Now, leaders can select multiple departments in which they are interested and monitor the progress of opportunities for improvements within them. For example, if you wanted to make sure that all opportunities for improvement throughout the organization were being completed in a timely manner, you could choose to be notified about opportunities for improvement that are overdue by 30 days. If you also wanted to be informed whenever an opportunity for improvement has an impact of over, say, $10,000, you could customize your notification filters to tell you about those opportunities.
   
   This new flexibility in notification options allows leaders to stay in the loop regarding whatever aspect of improvement work is relevant to them.