Principles and skills that have
been learned in operating the business are embedded in the Quality Processes of
the business as a reflection of the process ensuring customer satisfaction and
business continuity. The conservation often leads to the topic around
continuous improvement and innovation. Often clients will ask,
“At what point do you stop with
continually improving and look for a new process or new innovation”
A really interesting point and often
where it culminates with a discussion about reviewing the outputs of the
processes to see if they actually fit the needs of the receiver of these
outputs. This conversation reminds me of a really great point someone once made
at a conference I attended, which went something along the lines of…
“The
light bulb wasn’t invented by continuously improving the candle…it
was about understanding what the job to be done was and then stepping back to
look for solutions to solve this”
I feel this makes a great point in that
you could spend lots of time and energy making a candle burn the longest or the
brightest, least smoky but you would never get to a lightbulb; it would always
be a candle. In the same hand if you don’t truly understand what the ‘job to be
done’ is then you could waste precious time and resource improving processes
not fit for purpose. This is often a moment for and I think (to avoid the pun)
a few ‘light bulb’ moments for the clients themselves in terms of thinking
about continuous improvement and innovation…
Take a look at your processes to become
more innovative. Surviving in today’s landscape needs a concentrated view of
how to change the way the company delivers a quicker, better more ‘wow’ moment
for the customer without any compromise in quality.
