Maybe you have noticed, or at least I hope you have noticed that with my newsletters I try to come up with good themes that are useful to my readers and write multiple articles around that theme. Many of you have mentioned to me at one time or another that you find these articles useful, so I know I have that part right. As far as theme goes, I was most recently covering the processes and behaviors needed to sustain improvement. I also did a series of articles focused on data and how to make use of data for improvement. I hope that you have found value in these different themes. Please share with me your thoughts. I am interested in hearing about the kind of themes that you might find thought provoking.
For the next series of articles I have decided to focus on the process of discovery. We call it different names, but I like discovery the best because it is the most encompassing of what we try to do when we approach a new business, operation, or department function.
Discovery occurs at the front end of an engagement when a leader desires to achieve greater performance from his or her organization. We do this quite often as consultants, but I also did this in my corporate roles. It is overwhelming to try and figure out all the things that are working and that are not working in a medium to large organization. It is more difficult when a leader is already biased toward a specific problem.
Performing discovery properly and thoughtfully requires both hard skills and soft skills. Getting these right is crucial to both gaining credibility with an organization and identifying the critical pain points that require improvement.
In the next few articles I will cover the techniques we use to do our discovery work:
- Process observation
- Interviewing people
- Waste Walks
- Process Mapping
- Data gathering
I will also write an article or maybe two on some of the soft skills, especially around presenting findings. Again, this can help get things off on the right foot.
- Avoid assumptions
- Presenting findings
Every continuous improvement engagement starts with Discovery. At its core continuous Improvement is a learning activity, discovery is how we learn. Getting this right is crucial to finding and fixing the most impactful problems and creating a trusting relationship with the organization so that they will be open to the inevitable change that you will bring.