The idea of Kaizen is no stranger to many UK entrepreneurs and business owners.
Kaizen is a Japanese term that translates as ‘continuous improvement’ and it’s a philosophy that stresses the importance of continuously making improvements to a process or product.
It’s a simple but powerful idea that can help you and your team achieve greater efficiency and success, but it requires commitment.
It’s an approach that can be easily adopted by any business, regardless of size. And it can make a big impact on your bottom line.
A few pointers…
📌 PLANNING
You need to identify a specific activity to focus on. Establish a timeline and create a plan for each step. And make sure everyone involved understands the plan.
📌 VISUALISE
Next, you need to create a system for tracking and visualising your progress with the activity. This might include visual boards, graphs or charts which make it easy for everyone to see the status and where improvements need to be made.
📌 CLEAN UP
Part of the effort to fine-tune and improve a specific activity is to clean up the process itself, whether that is the physical work area or digital space.
📌 BEST PRACTICES
Standardised procedures (industry or company-level), automated processes, and standard tools and equipment will help provide a level playing field, regardless of who is involved in the activity on a given day.
📌 TRACK & ADJUST
Kaizen will require you to consistently monitor progress and feedback learnings into the overall process, to keep improving over time.
Above all else, Kaizen is not a short term project, but requires deep cultural change, to commit to never-ending improvement in the business.