Steps of the continual improvement model

Step 1 – What is the vision? 

This step focuses on two main subjects: 

1. There should be a high-level vision for improvements.
2. The organization’s vision should be explained to the persons and groups who are involved in improvement so that they understand how to manage the implementation to make it aligned with the visions of the organization.

It is important to make these items clear to achieve a successful effort in this step: high-level directing, improvement, stakeholders and their roles, expected value, the role of the improvement team

If this step is ignored, it’s possible that improvement will be useful only for the team who were involved in it and will not be useful for the entire organization, or the work will not add value to the organization.  

Step 2 – Where are we are? 

To clearly go through the way, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the beginning point, so it’s necessary to assess current services, user feedbacks, personal skills, functions, organizational cultures, stakeholders’ views, and technology capabilities and if possible, based on understandable measurement.

If this assessment is not correctly performed and there is no clear understanding of the current situation, then the evaluation of the success of improvement progress will not have an accurate result because there is not a comparison between each step with its last step. 

Step 3 – Where do we want to be? 

In this step, the goal to achieve is defined. Consider that the goals are not 100% achievable and they should be prioritized so that the more important goals be achieved with more success rate. 

If this step is not performed correctly, then the achieved value will not be clear and because of that, improvement progress might not have the efficient support of stakeholders. 

Step 4 – How do we get there? 

Now that source and destination are defined, then the route should be drawn. According to this, a plan is designed. It’s noticeable to plan the improvement in an iterative way while it could be better managed and revised.

If this is not well designed, possibly the progress fails, and if the progress fails, the trust of stakeholders for further improvements will be lost.  

Step 5 – Take action 

In this step, the implementation of plans for improvement will occur. There are some methodologies to use in this step. Regarding the decision of team based on the organization’s vision or culture or other considerations, Agile or waterfall models could be used.

There is no need to mention what will happen if this step is ignored!

Step 6 – Did we get there? 

Once an improvement is implementing, it should be assessed and analyzed if the goals are achieved and also if the goals are still valuable or not and if necessary, new plans and steps should be considered. 

If this is not performed, the realizing goals are not actually done, and also the learned lessons will not be collected. 

Step 7 – How do we keep the momentum going? 

• If the approach is achieved: Change management and knowledge management practices should be utilized to embed the changes into the organization and assure that changes are not stepped backward. 
• If the approach is not achieved: Stakeholders should be announced about the reason for failure and also the lessons learned should be collected and documented. Alternative actions based on experience should be selected. 

If this step is not well performed, then the improvement activities remain isolated and independent and following that, the efforts will become useless. Also, it’s possible that the embedment of improvement in the culture of the organization and also the future improvements will be unsuccessful.