Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Continuous improvement is persistent improvement

I was working on a relatively technical task today. A process that seems as though it should be virtually automatic is taking about three hours per item.

When I'm in the thick of trying to get the job done, it's hard to keep focused on improvement. It is tempting to put off the improvements for another time. But it isn't a good idea. The task is going to come up again and I'd be no better off then than now. That's the way to get stuck in a rut of poor performance.

One of the things that helped for improvements is that each time that I finished doing one of the items, I stopped to make a list of the unexpected inefficiencies that appeared while doing the work. Making the list made solutions and improvements come to mind, which I then implemented. Those improvements made the next item go more smoothly.

Over the course of the day, I improved the process significantly. But I continued to find more issues. The key to success is persistence. Keep improving, even when you don't feel like it. Remember, the job isn't just to do the job, it's to do the job better.

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