The Questions of Continuous Improvement

• • “The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.”

                                                                                                                                               Claude Levi-Strauss

I have written elsewhere of my view that the goal of leadership is attract followers to go in the direction you are leading and that the secret of leadership is the art of asking good questions. However, the French social anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss said it so much better.

Those of us who work in continuous improvement must lead others (teams, sponsors, stakeholders) to solve problems and capitalize upon opportunities to improve. That too is more easily done with questions. My Results-Alliance colleague, Dr. Richard Taylor, and I have assembled some questions that will help. These are organized in the flow of Lean Six Sigma, but we are really methodology agnostic.

Defining the problem

• Who is the customer of this process? End customer? Intermediate customer? Who receives the output of this process?
• What problem are we trying to solve? What is wrong? With what?
• What is happening now? (Is/should matrix)
• What should be happening that is or isn’t?
• What is the impact of this problem? (Unnecessary cost, potential for increased revenue, workforce stress, et
• Must we solve all of this problem at once or can we break it down? (Scoping tree)
• Is this similar to other problem processes that have already been solved? (Solution search and translation)
• Who provides inputs to this process?
• Who else does this problem touch? (Stakeholders)
• How long has this problem been an issue? (Duration is a proxy for the amount of change that a solution may require.)

Measuremnt

• How do we measure the extent of the problem (or opportunity)?

• How will we know if we’ve solved the problem? (Results metrics or lagging indicators)

• How will we know if we are on track to solving the problem? Process metrics or leading indicators

• How good are the data?

• Do the data accurately reflect the process? (Measurement Systems Analysis, (MSA) or Calibration)

• How do we know we will consistently get the same data??(MSA)

• Where are we now? (Baseline Metrics)

• How much can we improve? By when? (Goal)

Analyzing root causes and potential solutions

• Why are we where we are? (Causes) How do you know? (Data based hypothesis testing) Can you demonstrate? (Proof with observation and historical hypothesis testing)

• How might we change? (Potential solutions)

• Has anyone else solved this problem (Solution search and Benchmarking)

Improving the process

• What are the best solutions? How do you know? (Data based) Can you demonstrate? (Designed experiment)

• What is our plan to achieve the benefit? (Implementation Plan)

Controlling the solution and the process going forward

• How do we know that the plan will work? (Pilot, field test)

• Did we improve? By how much? Versus expectations?

• How do we know we can keep it up? (Control plan, monitoring, response, training, systems alignment, documentation and review schedules.)

• What’s next?

• With this project? (Direct translation from the scoping tree)

• With other projects (Direct and indirect translation)

• With other strategic priorities (Next project)

Each one of these questions shapes the work of continuous improvement. The questions might start to be answered by a few experienced people in a room with a whiteboard, but they are intended to drive those smart people to those who are actually doing the work, to observe the process and to collect and analyze data upon which to base problem solving and decision making. For as, Charles Schultz, the creator of the Peanuts cartoon once put in:

“In the book of life’s questions, the answers are not in the back.”

Copyright Alan  Cay Culler 2018   Thanks for reading; I welcome your comments and shares

For 37 years I have been helping leaders make strategic change. If you would like to know more, please contact me at alan@results-alliance.com. +1-973-744-4911