Why Do Continuous Improvement Programs Fail?
Why Do Continuous Improvement Programs Fail? There are 5 Reasons!
Reason No.1: Failure to Understand the Problem!
Every continuous improvement initiative begins with a problem. Understanding the problem is critical, it determines the best analysis technique or method required. In the absence of a proper understanding of the problem an inappropriate method or technique is often applied. In this case, the solution is elusive and guesswork becomes a recommendation that often falls short. There is nothing worst then applying an inappropriate technique or method. It wastes time and frustrates all involved – something that doesn’t foster a positive culture. This leads to another reason. Why do continuous improvement programs fail? Because problems get delegated!
Reason No.2: Problems Get Delegated
Management often delegates problems to employees. Sometimes these employees don’t have the skill to solve that problem. When management delegates a problem what are the chances an employee will decline to work on that problem? No way it’s going to happen. This leads to another reason. Why do continuous improvement programs fail? People use techniques they know!
Reason No.3: People Use Techniques They Know
People will often use a technique to study a problem simply because that’s all they know. When people lack the knowledge needed to approach a problem they should decline to work on a problem. But this is unrealistic and leads to another reason. Why do continuous improvement programs fail? Fear of failure!
Reason No.4: Fear of Failure
The fear of failure is worse than implementing the wrong solution. When you implement something at least you have something to show for it, even if it didn’t work, at least you can say you tried. But the problem with this approach is wasted time and money. This leads to another reason. Why do continuous improvement programs fail? Poor teamwork!
Reason No.5: Poor Teamwork
Teamwork is critical when your inherent knowledge is insufficient to study a problem. Picking the right people to work on the problem is critical. If you pick people that don’t have the right knowledge then you have the wrong people working on the problem. This just wastes more time and money. But I often see cases where the right people were working on the wrong problem. This upsets management and wastes more time and money. This leads to another reason. Why do continuous improvement programs fail? Failure to understand the problem!
Failure to Understand the Problem
When you understand the problem you can pick the right approach, the right people, with the right knowledge to help you. I guess that’s why the first phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC protocol begins with the problem statement.
There are many reasons why continuous improvement initiatives fail. The cause is most often a failure to understand the problem.
Now it’s your turn. Have you experienced any of these five reasons? If so, I’d like to know your story. If you have another reason why a continuous improvement program failed – then I’d like to know. Please leave your comments below. I look forward to what you have to say!
Thanks for you input, Continuous improvement is a process where we can not skip step 1, develop your organization and give them a vision. Then the rest will happen.
Continuous improvement must always start with developing the organization. Your results are based on the skills and abilities of your people. The development process cannot be skipped neither considered a minor point. The organization is not unlike PRO sports, you must have talented players to start thinking about a championship. Then you must have the right coach to pull the team together to achieve the results needed to play every game to win. But this process does not start with the players on the bench, you need a minor league with players that you train and develop. You need to give these players the opportunities to test their skills, gain confidence, and build experience. To accomplish this you must have a process to select players and bring them into your culture and philosophy.
Continues improvement requires doing your homework – you need to develop the organization, transfer the right culture, give people the skills to rationalize problems and how to attack them, provide them with the right methodologies, measure your key and important critical characteristics and have a controlled process.
Once you have this recipe then you can improve. You cannot improve from a chaos base line. First you must control and understand your environment, then you can start thinking about improvement.
As I always say, improvement is simple but you must earn it by having the right road map. You can go to any gym and see people with the right build, and see how they exercise, but unless you have the discipline, the right diet, perseverance and the right plan you will never achieve what these people have done.
A lot of people think that they can achieve it without the discipline and methodologies – this is not possible.
So my recommendation: build your team, define your culture, get the discipline and train your teams, then improve.
Managers that just delegate without having the proper process in place are naïve and ignorant, they are asking for improvement when they haven’t started on step 1.
Well said Victor! It’s a great way to frame the discussion.
Well seen Andrew! The result is a series of mistakes by not assess the impact of each item described. Thanks for sharing!
Good Day….
It was really appreciating your topic. I have one comment for the luck of people knowledge. luck of people knowledge is not a big issue in defining the problem, for sure they will take more time , but at least they will be able to understand the problem if THE PEOPLE YOU CHOOSE ARE SMART ENOUGH TO GET THE RIGHT INFORMATION. As we all in the quality field knows that the field engineer technically have much information than the quality engineer. The good quality engineer should be smart enough and knows how to get the right information from the right person….the good engineer can reduce the time spend in getting such information.
Actually this point should take more discussion, but at least I wanted to point to the fact that the quality engineer should be smart than any engineer in the field to succeed in his job and lead the company to the best and continuous improvement.
Regards…and waiting for such nice topics.
Firas,