Project Example 1: Improve Operations Performance
A good starting point is to improve operations performance, because the results are so tangible and immediate.
Dimensions
The dimensions to improve include:
- Throughput
- Staff engagement
- Process
- Practice
- Customer satisfaction
Keys
1. Throughput (units or dollars produced per month)
The key to improving throughput is to improve bottleneck throughput - improving throughput elsewhere is pointless. (This may seem too obvious to be profound, but few people (much less teams) even know where the bottleneck is - never mind how to relieve it.)
The conventional approach is to improve things that can be improved the most, rather than things that will improve the end-to-end the most. So it's no wonder that bottleneck performance is hard to improve - if it was easy, we would have done it already.
If you aren't confident of dramatic improvement in throughput, you either don't have consensus on where the bottleneck is and what to do about it - or your consensus is mistaken.
2. Staff Engeagement
Sample Project Outline
Forecast Impact
- Throughput increases of the order of 30% to 100%. Note the disproportionate impact of throughput increasses on profit (e.g. a 10% increase in throughput, on the same costs, could result in a 100% increase in Operating Profit).
- Staff Engagement changes from unengaged or disengaged (or even destructively engaged) to highly enged and enthusiastic - as the result of maing a bigger difference
Service Options
- Advice
- Training
- Support
- Improvement Contract
