As improvers, we’ve all got this wrong. Avoid this simple mistake to transform your improvement efforts.

Improvement for the sake of the tools!

It’s very easy to focus on tools, collecting data without reflecting on what the gap in performance or the problem we are trying to solve.

Don't start sawing until you've measured twice

Every process can be improved, once it is stable, in statistical control. We still need to know what the aim or purpose is for the process or system, and whether we have a ‘problem’ related to that target state. Yet, fixing a problem only brings us back to where we should be, it doesn’t improve until we restate a new target.

Testing change ideas without clearly agreeing the desired state or what the problem is we wish to solve is aimless.

It is critical we grasp the current situation and identify the gap, plan our data collection and use appropriate visualisation. Think time series rather than aggregated before and after data.

Pause - time for 'slow thinking'

Step back, look at the process, where are we now, where do we want to get to, are we improving a stable process or is there a problem with the performance we need to ‘solve’ first.

In fact, let’s avoid the term ‘solution’ (unless it is a mathematical problem). Countermeasures bring us back to the expected level of performance, rather than improve beyond. Hence, the importance of agreeing a target state, something that stretches the current capability if we wish to continually improve what we have by testing changes ideas using PDSA cycles.