Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to better all elements of a business. The saying that small daily improvements are the key to staggering long-term results, rings true in any improvement initiative.
Investing in your employees’ learning and development is key to ensuring a smooth transformation. Team dynamics play a vital role in the organisation’s culture. Each member of a team’s role impacts other team members and the group as a whole.
Doing a full learnership is always a good idea, as there are so many benefits attached to it, HOWEVER, there certainly are times when a shorter intervention is required, to obtain some quicker gains for the organisation.
The Skills Programmes offered by ODI have been carefully selected to ensure maximum benefits.
Manage Basic Team Dynamics and Techniques (for Continuous Business Improvement) is a 4-day Skills Programme that addresses five performance areas (PA’s):
- Goal alignment as a best practice strategy
- Use a mini business to meet organisational goals
- Manage the activities of your mini business
- Increase efficiency in your mini business through the implementation of the 5S approach.
- Problem-solving and decision-making
A group of first-line supervisors who recently completed this Skills Program had the following to say:
- I enjoyed being here. I’ve learned that there are different ways to look at problems and problem-solving
- I’ve learned a lot. I don’t regret being part of this program, it was really a win-win. I’ve learned that you’re never too old to learn something. It was incredible.
- I’ve learned many things that I haven’t known before. I’ve learned how to apply it and how to provide leadership to my team
- The training was very good and inspirational. I have learned a lot and it was great to be here.
- Effective. Eye-opener. Cultivate and implement better ways of organisational & Skills Development.
- Very spot-on training to implement in your area for improvements. Problem solving and 5why’s was very useful to implement.
- Learned about how to get our mini business to a point where all team members can understand what the patterns in the workplace are, and how we can make it better
- I’ve experienced so many things that I never knew before that I can use now to improve my work-area. I’ve learned what it means to run/manage a mini business.
To give you a better idea of what is covered in this Skills Programme, we’ll discuss each performance area.
PA1: Goal alignment as a best practice strategy, deals with:
- The organisation strategy, includes the vision, mission and values.
- The strategic direction of the organisation
- The key success factors including:
- Diverse customer base
- Financial stability
- Access to and retention of key skills
- Ability to manage risks.
- Operational efficiency
- Continuous improvement
- Best operating practices
- Organisation structure
- Benchmarking
- The difference between benchmarking and best practices
PA2: Use a mini business to meet organisational goals, deals with:
- Organisational goals and objectives
- How you measure success
- What one intends to do or achieve
- The purpose towards which an endeavour is directed.
- The specific target towards which an organisation is striving.
- How individual goals are aligned with departmental and organizational goals.
- The CAPDo cycle
- Aligning goals to legislative requirements
- Establish a mini business following the steps below:
- The team as a system within the organization
- Supply chain
- Understanding customer service excellence
- Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)
- Customer Satisfaction Survey
- Improve customer service through the CAPDo cycle.
- Building supplier relationships
PA3: Manage the activities of your mini business, involves:
- Communicating goals, objectives, and standards to team members
- Holding regular meetings to discuss performance against standards.
- Monitoring and evaluating performance
- Keeping records of team performance
- Managing and prioritising your time
PA4: Increase efficiency in your mini business through the implementation of the 5S approach.
Efficient workplace organisation is about applying techniques to make work easier and safer, and creating a functional, good-looking workplace.
Everybody in the organization should be involved, and implementation at first-line team level is especially important, as they are closest to day-to-day operations.
With the 5S technique (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain), you will learn how to create, and maintain an organized workplace.
- Sort: The first step in making work safer and easier; finding and getting rid of all unneeded items in the workplace. You should look at all items in your work area including:
- material,
- equipment,
- tools,
- parts,
- information,
- stationary,
- furniture,
- signs
- Set-in-order: Once all the unneeded items have been removed from the workplace, arrange the needed items, so that it is easy to see:
- Where things are
- What is out of place, missing, or too much.
- Where things should be returned to
The aim is to create a safe and visual workplace. Remember there is a golden rule: A place for everything and everything in its place.
- Shine: to create a bright and pleasant workplace. Shine, or cleaning, also focuses on removing dirt, dust, and grime from the workplace. Cleaning should become a part of daily work habits.
- Standardise: Method used to maintain sort, shine, and set in order. Means to maintain cleanliness and orderliness; to prevent things from slipping back to the way they were is done by:
- Writing simple procedures
- Assigning responsibilities
- Preventing things from getting dirty and disorganized
- Doing workplace audits, using the 5S check sheet.
- Sustain: has to do with self-discipline; following the standard, specified procedure. It is about creating a culture of doing things the right way; putting things back where they belong, replacing a misplaced item, picking up a piece of paper in the corner, etc. People at all levels of the organization need to be won over to the 5S culture. The following methods can be used:
- Communication
- Education
- Recognition
- Time
- Structure
PA5: Problem-solving and decision-making
Some problems never seem to go away; they keep on coming back. That’s because the real problem has not been solved, only the symptoms of the problem. These persistent problems are the most frustrating to deal with, and they need a systematic approach to get to the bottom of what is causing them. Use the CAPDo- cycle to solve problems:
- Check
- Step1: Define the problem. A problem is the gap between the current state and the desired state. Problems can be identified through:
- Own observations and experience
- Comparative/benchmarking studies
- Quality and safety audits
- Complaints
- Performance reporting
- Customer satisfaction surveys, etc.
- Analyze
- Step2: Analyze for causes (Identify all possible causes, collect data about causes, interpret data, identify most probable cause)
- Step3: Generate solutions.
- Step4: Select best solution.
- Plan
- Step 5: Plan to implement best solution.
- Do
- Step6: Implement best solution.
- Celebrate success.
- Step7: Evaluate results.
Continuous improvement and constantly finding new and better ways of managing your business should be the basis of any improvement initiative.
Author: Valery Hansen: Facilitator at ODI