A is for Action Plan, without this, everything you say in those meetings is just hot air.
B is for Best Practice, a technique, process or activity in your business known to bring the most effective solution or outcome than any other applied in a similar situation.
C is for Coaching, being a mentor to someone and taking them on a personal journey in self-fulfilment and discovery
D is for DMAIC a well-documented problem solving technique based on six-sigma principles and 5 specific: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and control.
E is for Efficiency is a doing things in the most economical way, and if those things are the right things to be done then this becomes a measure of effectiveness.
F is for FMEA, Failure Mode & Effects Analysis, a fancy term for a tool, typically used in new product development, to identify potential failure modes based on past experience with similar products or processes.
G is for Gantt Chart, the project scheduling tool of choice for managing improvement projects, milestones and responsibilities.
H is for Histogram, also known as skyscraper diagram, or bar chart. It’s a series of data plotted on a bar chart representing frequency or quantity against different intervals.
I is for the Inspiration to Improve – the heart and soul of Continuous Improvement
J is for the Japanese pioneers in Continuous Improvement, Sakichi Toyoda and Ishikawa amongst them, who at the heart of the Japanese industrial revolution were instrumental in embracing the principles of continuous improvement.
K is for Kaizen, the Japanese word that simply means “Change for the Better”. So now you know where we get our name SmallBizKaizen from!
L is for Learning, a continuous need to “sharpen the saw” to ensure your knowledge thirst is never quenched.
M is for Motivation necessary to support improvement efforts. Top Management plays a vital role in motivating everyone in Kaizen.
N is for Novel Ideas, typically the birth of most Continuous Improvement successes.
O is for Opportunity, any gap between a customer expectation and what your business currently delivers. This is the very source of Continuous Improvement
P is for Problem Solving, a discipline and approach to remove obstacles and barriers preventing your organisation from fulfilling customer obligations and expectations.
Q is for Quality as defined in the eyes of the customers. Are your products and services fit for purpose?
R is for Reward and Recognition an essential part of the CI loop. Recognise the stars and the players in your team and always celebrate successes.
S is for Sustainability – The art of ensuring your hard earned improvements don’t slip back to old habits.
T is for Tracking the impact of Actions to check whether the CI has been delivered.
U is for Upper Control Limit, the upper most control limit set in a Statistical Process Control chart to trigger corrective and preventive action.
V is for Value Addition – Efforts put into any product and/or service to improve attributes and is appreciated by your customers is deemed to have added value.
W is for Waste Elimination, basically any non-value adding activities along the value chain are considered to be Waste and ought to be eliminated.
X is a difficult letter to find a word beginning with it so we’ll settle for eXcellence in eXecution wich is the art of ruthless and flawless delivery of agreed objectives.
Y is for Yoke, part of Poka Yoke the Japanese word meaning “fool proofing”, designing a product in such a way it’s virtually impossible to make a mistake using the product.
Z is for Zero Defect, the quest for perfection in everything you and your organisation does.
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