Business Environment · Topic 7 of 8
Continuous Improvement
Improve processes with PDCA, kaizen, lean, root cause analysis, retrospectives and lessons learned using small, measured steps in any approach.
- 4 min
- PDCA stands for plan, do, check and act, and it repeats.
- Kaizen means small, continuous improvements by everyone.
- Lean aims to maximize value by removing waste.
What it is
Continuous improvement is the habit of making the way of working a little better again and again. Teams look at what happened, find the causes of problems and waste, try changes and check whether results improved. The aim is steady gains in quality, speed, cost and team satisfaction.
It applies in every approach. Predictive teams often improve through reviews and lessons learned, and agile teams build improvement into every iteration.
How it works
The improvement cycle
The best known model is plan, do, check, act (PDCA), also called the Deming cycle. A team plans a change, tries it on a small scale, checks the data and then either adopts the change or adjusts and tries again. The cycle repeats, so improvement never stops.
Kaizen is the Japanese term for continuous, small improvements made by everyone. It values frequent small changes over rare large ones.
Lean thinking
Lean focuses on delivering value and removing waste. Waste is any activity that uses effort but adds no value for the customer. Common forms of waste include waiting, defects and rework, unnecessary handoffs, extra features, partly done work and unused talent.
A value stream map shows the steps from request to delivery and highlights delays, which shows where improvement will help most. Limiting work in progress, as in Kanban, is another lean practice.
Finding root causes
Improvement starts with understanding why a problem occurred, not with guessing at a fix.
| Tool | Use |
|---|---|
| Five whys | Ask why repeatedly until the underlying cause appears |
| Cause and effect diagram | Group possible causes by category |
| Pareto chart | Rank causes by frequency to choose where to act |
| Process analysis | Examine a process for steps that add no value |
Six Sigma in brief
Six Sigma is a data driven approach to reducing defects and variation. Its improvement cycle is define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC). A project manager does not need advanced statistics, but should recognize the cycle and its focus on measured results.
Retrospectives and lessons learned
A retrospective is a regular team meeting that asks what went well, what did not and what to change. The team picks a few actions, assigns owners and reviews them at the next retrospective. A good retrospective is safe, focused on process and not people, and leads to real change.
In predictive projects, lessons learned sessions at phase ends and at closure serve the same purpose. Better still, capture lessons continuously so they can help the current project and not just the next one.
Making improvement stick
Improvements should be small enough to try quickly, measured so you know if they worked, and shared so others can use them. Add successful practices to templates, checklists and the definition of done. Tracking an improvement backlog or board makes the work visible.
Leadership role
Leaders support improvement by making time for it, protecting a safe space for honest feedback and acting on suggestions. If a team spots problems but nothing changes, people stop speaking up.
Improvement and the wider organization
Local improvements can feed back into organizational process assets, such as updated templates. Project managers also help the organization by sharing data on what works. Maturity models and benchmarking are tools that organizations use to compare their practices with others.
In an exam scenario with repeated defects, the stronger answer finds and fixes the root cause through analysis, not just repairs each defect again.
What to remember for the exam
- PDCA stands for plan, do, check and act, and it repeats.
- Kaizen means small, continuous improvements by everyone.
- Lean aims to maximize value by removing waste.
- Five whys, cause and effect diagrams and Pareto charts help find root causes.
- DMAIC is define, measure, analyze, improve and control.
- Retrospectives produce a few concrete actions with owners.
- Capture lessons throughout the project, not only at the end.
- Successful practices should be shared and added to standards.
- Improvement must be measured to know whether it worked.
Common mistakes
Running retrospectives with no follow up. Actions without owners or review change nothing.
Blaming people. Focus on process, or the team will stop being honest.
Trying to fix everything at once. A few focused changes are easier to measure.
Skipping measurement. Without data, you cannot tell whether a change helped.
Keeping lessons in a file nobody opens. Feed them into plans, templates and checklists.
Do not treat lessons learned as an end of project formality, since most of the value comes from acting on them while the work is still under way.
Check yourself
What does PDCA stand for?
Plan, do, check, act, a repeating cycle for testing and adopting improvements.
What is waste in lean thinking?
Any activity that consumes effort but adds no value for the customer, such as waiting, rework or unused features.
What should a retrospective produce?
A small number of agreed improvement actions with owners, reviewed at the next retrospective.
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