Monday, April 2, 2012

8 ways to incorporate continuous improvement in knowledge work

What constitutes continuous improvement in knowledge work?

1. Continually root out all waste
   • Knowledge work that doesn't involve judgement or expertise
   • Use the five whys to uncover waste
   • Rotation among jobs to spread knowledge
   • Look for small forms of waste, not just big ones
   • Periodically review the structure and content of each job
   • Avoiding errors, especially big ones! When errors occur, find out why and take steps to avoid their recurrence.
   • Reduce uncertainty. Experiment.
2. Strive to make tacit knowledge explicit
   • Specify the work; simple checklists are often sufficient
   • Codify repeatable parts of the work
   • Use the checklists or specified work. It often helps to involve two people to enforce the use of checklists.
   • Use data about the benefits of improvements to get buy-in
3. Establish measurable goals
   • Make progress toward goals easily visible as with a dashboard
4. Specify how team members should communicate
   • What needs to be communicated
   • Resolve disagreements with facts
   • Explicit lists of errors and their descriptions. This helps differentiate errors from style preferences.
5. Use the scientific method to solve problems quickly
   • Ideally the person who created the problem should fix it
   • Solve problems where they occur to comprehend contextual information
   • Solve problems as soon as possible after they occur
6. Recognize that your processes are always a work in progress
   • Codify lessons learned
   • Keep looking for new ways to work
   • Lean approach doesn't apply to visionary work
7. Improve knowledge and skills
   • Continue to gain expertise with your tools rather than plateauing at a basic level
   • Continue to learn in your field
8. Have leaders blaze the trail
   • Management must maintain interest and involvement over the long term
   • Persistence is the key
   • Because it is difficult, it makes it difficult for competitors to replicate

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Keywords: Continuous improvement, waste