Before we dive into this blog post, we want to take a minute to share the KaiNexus response to COVID-19, and share the resources we're developing daily to promote public safety. We hope that you and yours are staying safe and healthy, and we look forward to continuing to serve you through this crisis.

Next month, we're rolling out a cool new feature in KaiNexus called Personas.

We know that it can be difficult to organize users in KaiNexus based on their role in your improvement culture. This can make it hard to quickly monitor the activity and engagement of users who may have vastly different goals and responsibilities. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell at a glance who your CI Experts, Executives, Senior Leaders, and Frontline staff are and what they're doing in KaiNexus?

Personas are identifiers added to every User Profile to address this challenge. Here's an overview of each Persona.

(For more details, download this PDF)

CI Experts

Continuous Improvement (CI) Experts are the people in your organization that are primarily responsible for establishing and sustaining your culture of continuous improvement. At some organizations this is a single individual, while others may have a whole department dedicated to this task.

The Implementation Leads are the 2-3 CI Experts that lead the implementation of KaiNexus. These are the people that are the primary points of contact for KaiNexus, and who make all decisions about the configuration of the platform.

How many are there?

Fewer than 1% of your users should be CI Experts.

What job titles typically fit this Persona?

CI Experts are people whose primary job functions relate to improvement work (ex. a Director of Continuous Improvement or Process Improvement Specialist).

How do they spread improvement?

• Determine the process by which all continuous improvement is done across the organization
• Hold senior leaders accountable to their ideal improvement behaviors
• Establish ideal improvement behaviors for every Persona specific their organization
• Coach and assist managers in establishing and sustaining improvement habits in their staff
• Implementation Leads: Configure KaiNexus, serve as the main point of contact with KaiNexus
  
  

Executives

Executives are the people in your organization who, while not directly responsible for continuous improvement as a part of their daily work, are highly invested in its success as a way to achieve organizational goals and strategic initiatives.

The executives in your organization need a high-level view that enables them to see what’s happening with regard to each of their key performance indicators, without getting bogged down in the details managed by your CI Experts.

How many are there?

5-10% of your users should be Executives.

What job titles typically fit this Persona?

Executives are senior leaders in your organization, including titles such as Vice Presidents, C-Suite Executive, Division Lead, etc.

How do they spread improvement?

• Set the tone for commitment to continuous improvement
• Hold managers accountable for following improvement behaviors
• Recognize and reward areas of excellence
• Communicate about improvement frequently
• Model behaviors they want to see across the organization
  
  

Leader

The Leaders in your organization are the people responsible for driving the improvement work of their Frontline workers in order to meet the goals set by their Executives.

Their goal is to model and promote the improvement behaviors that create a culture of continuous improvement, and ensure that their employees practice them. Leaders depend on the improvement and technology expertise of the CI Experts.

How many are there?

5-20% of your users should be Leaders.

What job titles typically fit this Persona?

Leaders are people driving improvement work in their area of the organization. Possible titles include Manager, Team Leader, Division Lead, etc.

How do they spread improvement?

• Drive and create discipline around improvement in their teams
• Communicate and frame leadership goals to their teams at the local level
• Coach improvement, rather than doing the improvement themselves
• Encourage champions and identify skeptics that need extra coaching
• Hold frontline users accountable for following the desired improvement activities
• Implement the standard improvement methodology outlined by the CI Experts
  
  

Frontline

Your frontline people are those that participate in improvement, but are not responsible for higher-level improvement work like coaching or planning and organizing strategic efforts.

Because these are the people that perform the daily work of your organization, they are the best-suited to improve those processes. 80% of the improvement potential of your organization lies in these employees.

Your goal in engaging frontline employees is to make it easy for them to participate without interrupting the necessary flow of their work. They don’t need to be improvement or technology experts to be effective!

How many are there?

70-90% of your users should be Frontline.

What job titles typically fit this Persona?

These are people engaged in improvement work without higher-level improvement responsibilities, such as office workers, nurses, technicians, equipment operators, etc.

How do they spread improvement?

• Identify opportunities, problems, waste, and defects
• Help provide solutions to these identified opportunities
• Communicate opportunities, problem, waste, and defects
• Engage in top-down improvement efforts as needed

Download this PDF for more information on Personas, including:

• Suggested User Settings for each Persona
• Suggested access for each Persona, including frequency of use and permissions
• Details on what each Persona needs to see upon logging into KaiNexus