It may be counterintuitive, but in the realm of Continuous Improvement, lists are a bad idea. If you must make a list, it should only have one item on it. In other words, tackle one improvement at a time within a given work area. Many companies encourage employees to submit their ideas and suggestions for improvement. They put these ideas on a list, prioritize them, and then take action on the ideas by working down the list.
Let’s say you have four issues that need improvement. When you address one of them, there’s a strong likelihood that those changes will impact the other issues. There may no longer be a problem, or by simply improving the other items, conditions for the remaining items may have changed. This means that the time spent assembling and prioritizing the list has been wasted.
Instead, choose a problem to address first and fix it. Then pick another problem, fix it, and so on.
© 2011 – Rick Pay – All Rights Reserved
