Levels of ‘improvement’
The progress-loop is based on four dominant 'main processes', which every organization should continuously optimize at every level: strategic, tactical and operational. They are:
It doesn’t matter with which process you start improving. Many organizations already have a large number of products on the market or have been working for decades through a certain process that could be improved. In which case, 'improving' could simply be the starting point. The process of improvement should be at the heart of every organization and it, therefore, has several levels to it. Since the environment around an organization is constantly changing, the state of ‘maintaining’ is already an 'active state' for an organization. You can say that the impact of 'maintaining' (or retaining) on the business playing field is a neutral one. After all, it’s about keeping a machine running or maintaining a market position. The potential impact of innovation, on the other hand, is large, but it often brings with it major consequences (and possible risks). But 'doing nothing' is also not an option, because it often leads to an organization having to repair, or even worse: replace parts (machines, people, methods and resources). In that case, you are quickly 2-0 behind. Having downtime is a decline in the environment.
The different activities of improvement are:
The progression loop assumes that employees work in multi-disciplinary teams on processes surrounding defined challenges, rather than being divided into departments and fixed structures. If you work in the Marketing department, it doesn't mean you can't optimize the sales channel or financial flows. Every employee should be constantly engaged in thinking up, creating, selling and improving themselves (staff), the processes in which they work, the properties that are available and ultimately the products in which all that love, time and energy take shape.
Reallocate time
Improving processes through the progression-loop could even be translated into time expenditure. You can divide the day into blocks:
● ???? imagine (in the morning - not in the office);
● ???? make (as soon as thinking stops - at the office in teams);
● ???? selling (telling, can also be done after thinking up and then making something - with external parties such as the client);
● ???? improving (processing feedback during the sales phase);
● ???? and then think again how it can be improved …
Several companies, including Google, are increasingly allowing employees to dream for 10 to 20 percent of their time and think about improving the world. This doesn't always have to happen at the office, because that's usually not the most inspiring place. What's more, the best ideas emerge at times of rest and inactivity, for example in the shower or immediately after meditation.
The interaction of disciplines
Just like companies in the games industry, companies in Silicon Valley often work with teams that have different disciplines in them. These can include a thinker, a creator, a salesman and a (world) improver. The interplay of reasoning, physical, emotional and spiritual always leads to new insights. Improvers are needed to criticize the status quo: the current failings. Thinkers are needed who can express the vision of improvement in a realistic plan. Creators (makers) are needed to execute the plan well, and salespeople (sharers) are needed who can translate the physical concept into an emotional necessity to the target group and sell the plan both internally and externally.
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Between each process, there is a natural transfer between people during meetings. An improver needs to be able to explain his dream to a thinker. The thinker must be able to inspire a creator in a conversation and perhaps a sales rep will also have direct feedback or input for the creator. The transferable characteristics of employees who work together in multidisciplinary teams play an important role in this process. Employees must be able to deliver energy when needed. The transferable competencies that influence this are the ability to listen, creativity, conceptual thinking, customer focus and results-oriented.
A person who has never come up with something will rarely come up with suggestions for improvement. This would mean that whatever they came up with once was not yet 'finished', or not good enough to bring to the market. But you have to let go of that way of thinking anyway. Martijn Aslander (life hacker), innovation guru of a new way of working, calls these opportunities for improving a state of permanent beta. After launch, the use of a product by the target group often leads to new insights. A product is never finished in this new reality, if only because it is subject to wear and tear due to market forces, technological development or simply transience. It is all the more important to ask the consumer for feedback about his or her user experience, because just like with a game you cannot shape a user experience, only the product. Based on that feedback you can improve the product again. This is where the power of the interplay of separate disciplines lies.
In addition to this, it may be even more important to find out why non-consumers don't buy your product. After all, in many cases, you also want to make them your customers. People are quick to ask why a product is being bought, but we also always ask what reasons there might be why a product is not being bought. Using consumer feedback as input for innovation, I’ll discuss the 'external context'.
The progress-loop can work at different abstract levels:
● ???? on a strategic level: cross-organizational;
● ???? at a tactical level: per business unit, department or process;
● ???? at an operational level: executive.
Here is an example of how each level can help when applied to your organisation.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE AT THE 'STRATEGIC' LEVEL
BrandNewGame was founded in 2009 and is active in several areas. The processes around those areas ensure a mutual synergy and in that sense a continuous growth of turnover and profit, or in other words: progress. The main processes are:
The interactive synergy of these main processes works as follows. The organization BrandNewGame originated during the writing of my first book ‘A brand new playground’. There were opportunities in the market to use games for other purposes than just pure entertainment. Many potential clients responded enthusiastically to the idea of writing a book about this and to come up with ideas to help organizations to get change issues moving in a fun and effective way. So the first product was a book with a lot of ideas. Subsequently, communication channels were explored to share these ideas with the world and potential clients. These channels included our blog, third-party websites and various events organized by marketing association Nima, the Marketing Information Event and conferences organized by Reed Business Events. There was also a lot of cold calling - especially in the beginning. In most cases, we were more than welcome to share our ideas, which gradually led to assignments coming in. After about three years, and thanks to a moment of reflection, it became clear that the success of the business was due to three processes that together had ensured continuous progress.
?Because I published so many articles (blog, third party websites, brochures, own books and contributions to books of others), I am regularly invited as speaker to events. Where many possible future clients of BrandNewGame would be present. I would then ask those leads for feedback on the presentation so that we could improve. Also, the presentations often raised the question of whether we would want to produce a serious game or gamification platform for their organization. Me and my team could then write a white paper or blog article about these projects, which would then often lead to invitations to talk about our most recent experiences. On the one hand, there is growth in the continuity of these processes (from publication to presentation to the production of a game), but there is also growing within the processes.
I started blogging, but that led to a book. Subsequently, I was asked to contribute to books by others and I was often interviewed for trade journals and newspapers. My presentations have also improved over the years, with the audiences also growing in size. At first, I talked for free in almost empty rooms, later I was paid for this and nowadays I am flown in by organisations all over the world to talk about my hobby. So we are constantly 'levelling-up' within each process instead of 'doing the same'. We roughly do the same still, but better, bigger or with more impact. Always focusing on progress. My business partner in Turkey (CEO Ahmet Akdag) always calls this 'Do it similar, but never the same'.
At the strategic level, it is a question of identifying those processes that can create mutual synergy, ideally permanently or with minimal adjustment. By using apparent and unapparent feedback in publications ('is it clicked or not?', 'is it downloaded or not?'), on presentations ('what was discovered afterwards?', 'what did you do with it?') and measuring the successes of projects ('has the objective been achieved?'), the organization as a whole continues to become better and better.
How could this work for your organization? Which dominant process can you identify that is achieving continuous growth on the business playing field? If an organization can increase turnover while reducing costs, the impact in the market grows, made visible by the lengthening of the vertical axis of the business playing field.
Again, the GameStorm can be used to identify processes that have a destructive impact on the set objectives, challenges and the top 9 constructive processes. Both processes, namely revenue increase and cost reduction, should be able to be expressed in a simple formula.