Friday, May 18, 2012

Revisiting continuous improvement in knowledge work

What constitutes continuous improvement in knowledge work?

1. Continually root out all waste
• What wastes your time?
• What wastes your talents and capabilities?
• What is being redone that could be automated or templated?
• Delve into why you do what you do. Is it all necessary and efficient?
• Who else has solved this problem? Must you resolve it?
• What do you do that creates no value (in the eyes of the customer)?
• What processes are in place only because of inertia? What can be eliminated?
• How can errors be eliminated (take them one at a time, error by error)? How can errors or defects be identified as early as possible?
• What don't we know about what we are doing? How can we better understand it?
2. Strive to make tacit knowledge explicit
• Are you making dumb mistakes? Specify work as simple checklists.
• What can be automated?
• What can be streamlined with standard parts like templates, boilerplate and copy and paste?
• Can you use the Pareto principle to make the easy 80% effortless while freeing time for the more challenging 20%
3. Establish measurable goals
• How can your process and goals become measureable?
• How can your process become more visual?
• How much measurement do you need to reduce uncertainty to make informed decisions?
4. Specify how team members should communicate
   • What can be communicated through shared resources such as databases and knowledge bases?
   • How can you effectively communicate (i.e., share information) with others without interrupting them (answers on demand)?
   • Who needs to know what? Who does not need to know what (so don't bother her)?
   • What facts are needed to resolve common questions?
   • What are your most common errors or situations that arise? Can they be pre-solved once rather than re-solved every time they occur?
   • What is an error and what is a style preference? Who resolves style preferences?
5. Use the scientific method to solve problems quickly
• Have you defined the problem?
• What evidence defines the problem?
• What evidence would indicate that the problem has been solved?
• What evidence shows that your changes are improvements?
• Has your candidate solution solved the problem? If not, try another.
6. Recognize that your processes are always a work in progress
• Do you realize that your job is not to do your job, but to do your job better?
7. Improve knowledge and skills
   • What have you learned?
   • What do you need to learn?
   • How can you learn it?
8. Have leaders blaze the trail
• Does management emphasize continuous improvement frequently and over a long time span?

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Keywords: continuous improvement, knowedge work