Continuous Improvement Strategies

Do you find yourself facing the same challenges over and over on your projects and teams?

If you feel stuck in the movie Groundhog Day, you are not alone. Now more than ever, government agencies are faced with constantly changing technologies and customer needs that can make progress seem out of reach.

As a technology vendor, we've adopted the Kaizen approach in the effort to be more effective at reaching project goals and meeting customer needs. Kaizen ("change for the good") is a mindset of continuous analysis and improvement popularized by the Toyota Production System to help agile teams develop from experience.

For inspiration, we gathered some insights from the experts:

• Kevin Ferguson on adopting Kaizen practices: "The concept of Kaizen resonated for me because it provided values and guiding principles that could help me and my company to become more effective."
• Kristen Cox on using Theory of Constraints to improve clarity: "A lot of times in government, people want to add things. We’re saying value is created when you remove a significant limitation in a way that wasn’t possible before."
• Bob Galen on leading with the mindset of a coach: "The professional coaching stance reminds us that we are not responsible for changing another person, that person is responsible for changing him or her self."
  

Next Steps