When it comes to generating improvement ideas, a fast option is to borrow inspiration.
There is a very quick and effective method which I will share with you here. I use it from time to time, but I most recently used it when trying to give some work experience students something meaningful to do on their placement.
A five step process
Let me explain the basic approach:
- Determine a problem you want to solve, or a goal to achieve.
- Pick an unrelated activity, product or service that you like.
- Brainstorm twenty features or functions about this item.
- For each item ask how it relates to the problem / goal. Explore the similarities and see if a parallel option in your business exists.
- Determine the action that you can undertake and repeat step 4 until the list is exhausted.
Both of the students I gave this exercise to liked computer games. They both came up with their lists of features and function and both of them came up with fast, practical and low cost ideas to improve two challenges the business faced. These weren’t little problems they were solving to ‘keep them busy’. One looked at accelerating software adoption whilst the other looked at improving knowledge of formal management systems.
As you could imagine, the students were quite surprised when they learned that their favourite hobbies allowed them to generate some meaningful improvement ideas. Sure, they needed someone that understood the business to help translate the solutions already embedded in their game but when it comes to your business, you can do both parts yourself.
This method can be applied to all kinds of business problems and goals. The perennial challenge of delivering on time is no different. In the past I have seen clients use the idea of ‘theme parks’ as inspiration for managing backlog and capacity!
If you have any goals, or challenges, that you want to resolve and are looking for inspiration I urge you to give this approach a go.
If you are looking for more strategies and ideas to generate continuous improvement ideas, check Effective Continuous Improvement.
The book is available from:
Most e-reader stores