How do you measure and communicate the impact of your team's improvement efforts?

Our goals are to enhance customer satisfaction by reducing response time to inquiries by 20% within the next six months, increase product quality by decreasing defect rates by 15% by the end of the year, and optimize operational efficiency by streamlining processes to achieve a 10% reduction in production costs within nine months. These goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, ensuring alignment with our organization's vision and strategy. We will track these metrics using balanced scorecards and KPIs to monitor progress and performance, enabling continuous improvement and strategic decision-making.

I absolutely agree with Alejandro. For people who are not in the weeds of the issue, money is the best way for them to understand the impact. It is also good for your team to demonstrate your impact to the bottom line. You don't have to make the calculations too complex. For example, you can add the value of all clients impacted by issues - the delta between before and after is the value that the team has mitigated risk for. For people who are in the weeds, the KPIs are likely to be a bit more obvious - ones that have been tracked for a while. Take this opportunity to ensure that you fully understand the KPIs.

The best policy here is follow your own teachings in the enterprise philosophy. The best KPI for productivity projects is the value generated in terms of money. Of course you will need to share that economical value with the people that is generating it. There can be creative and very productive ways to use that money for both, improving the bottom line as well as boosting the workforce development and boost productivity further. Transparency, doing the right thing, always has a great payback... and you get to sleep better at night.

Measure and communicate improvement impact by: Setting clear metrics aligned with goals. Tracking progress regularly. Using data to showcase results. Sharing success stories and testimonials. Soliciting feedback from stakeholders. Adjusting strategies based on outcomes. Ensuring transparency and to motivate continued progress.

First, it is necessary to create an internal contract with the defined goals, and what is the true objective for which Kaizen has its purpose, within this contract some topics are included to be defined such as the expected results, restrictions, team name, area, theme, among other information in which each organization has its particularity and systemic structure.

This will likely be an iterative process. You will drill down into data that either needs further investigation or doesn't at all give you the information you expected. Balance this - it's a fine line between not digging far enough and spending way too much time on data.

Before the project starts, goals need to be agreed along with the methods to follow up on those goals. These must be, of course, variables that are directly linked with the goal in question and under the influence level you give to the project team.

Before starting an improvement process, it is essential to have a reliable base of information, for this we can use historical KPIs and indicators for decision making, a quality tool that I have used a lot to perform a solid data analysis is the Pareto chart based on the 80/20 concept to eliminate the main problems.

Results need to be available to all stakeholders. Not on a "I posted them in the shared drive you can see the results there" basis, but in effective and visible way. Numbers, good or bad, are the objective way to motivate your teams whether by covering the goal, or if there is a need to revisit the actions taken if the numbers are not favorable. Waiting until the end to report bad numbers is not a good policy.

The most important thing is that everyone involved is engaged with the continuous improvement process, that is, leaders and managers need to actively participate and recognize the work performed. It is essential to expose the gains obtained through the Kaizen methodology to people so that they are impressed with the strength that this concept has within the organization.

Two sides on this policy: good and bad. The good part, specially if you have invested in training your teams, is that you can capitalize on their experience and creativity. It is incredible what you find by doing this. The downside, when you have weak leadership that wants to boost participation, is that bad ideas will be accepted in order to prevent participation to be discouraged. That is another of the reasons why training must be a priority cornerstone before you take the participated productivity lane.

Feedback is important to clarify objectives and align perspectives between stakeholders, in this way it is possible to achieve objectives in a more agile way.

Team report outs are a great way to recognize the team, share best practices, and for the organization to demonstrate their commitment to the Kaizen process. Keep them brief but give every kaizen team member the chance to speak and showcase their contribution to the event. Sometimes this is difficult for team members that are not accustom to presenting, but that's OK. The kaizen facilitator should recognize which team members are less/more comfortable and plan accordingly with some slam dunk areas that are easy to speak to. With the ability to present remotely, the report outs can include team members and feedback from across the organization.

Making the reports public and visible in the plant are a great motivation. Kaizen operating procedures include a celebration at the end of the project. The best motivation is when the team sees their results impact the company as well as their situation. This don't even has to be in a direct way. It very well can be improving things for the working force in general, like improving the cafeteria, improving the department structure in terms of salaries, or training, etc.

Recognition is essential to motivate and engage people to participate and understand the importance of Kaizen culture within organizations, recognition can be through gifts, events, certificates, trips and benchmarks. The main reason to motivate people should be the recognition and also the understanding of the benefits and importance that the program can provide to people and the organization

Teams improvement is not six monthly or a yearly plan instead it is a moment to moment affair. Coaching helps the team to bring in their focus on the process rather than on the end goal. The end goal is the ultimate but when one is focussed on the journey each one of the member on their own it is a remarkable feat. What comes along with this shift is - willingness to be open, collaborative, inclusivity and authenticity. The spirit of competing with each other is replaced by collaboration. Each one of them is measuring their own success thereby contributing slowly to the success of the project. The barriers of self-imposed limitations are knocked down by coaching which helps them to grow further fearlessly.