1st Edition

Escape the Improvement Trap Five Ingredients Missing in Most Improvement Recipes

By Michael Bremer, Brian McKibben Copyright 2011
    320 Pages 61 B/W Illustrations
    by Productivity Press

    319 Pages
    by Productivity Press

    Written by two experts who have dedicated their careers to quality improvement, Escape the Improvement Trap: Five Ingredients Missing in Most Improvement Recipes separates itself from other improvement books by looking at why most companies rarely achieve anything more than an average level of improvement maturity. They identify five critical ingredients required for successful improvement:

    1. A meaningful business value proposition and strategy that drives key improvement actions
    2. An engaging environment where people can do their best work
    3. A focus on meaningful metrics while avoiding irrelevant details
    4. Process improvement efforts that maximize cross-functional process performance and foster deeper process understanding, innovation, and execution of best work practices
    5. An executive mindset that focuses on customer value, people development, process performance, and business improvement outcomes, not solely on savings

    The authors consider a variety of situations at Independence Enterprise, a fictional company, based on their own very real experiences. They elaborate on the principles that should come into play, look at what Independence Enterprise is doing right and wrong, and suggest deployment actions to help you apply the principles to your own organization.

    Introduction
    Look at Your Organization’s Ability to Improve Relative to Your Industry
    More Critical Thinking Skills Need to Be Learned and Used
    Why We Wrote This Book
    How This Book Can Help You

    The New Normal: Just Because Your Organization Is Better than It Used to Be Doesn’t Mean You Have a Competitive Advantage
    Introducing Independence Enterprise, Inc.
    The Reality of the New Business Environment
    The Performance Improvement Dream
    The Reality of Most Improvement Initiatives
    Improvement Results and the Car You Drive
    Improvement Results within an Industry
    Five Levels of Improvement Maturity
    Quick Test: Assess Your Organization’s Improvement Level
    Independence Enterprise Assesses Its Improvement Level
    So, Are Performance Improvement Initiatives Worthwhile?

    What Does It Mean to Escape the Improvement Trap?
    Independence Enterprise Inc. Assesses Its Improvement Level
    What Does It Mean to Be Average?
    Characteristics of Level 2 Organizations
    Characteristics of Level 3 Organizations
    Examples of Level 3 Organizations
    What Is the Improvement Trap?
    Opportunities and Reality
    Five Common Missing Ingredients
    Independence Enterprise Looks at What’s Missing in Its Improvement Efforts
    Chapter Wrap-Up: A Checklist for You to Assess Your Organization—Are You Just Average?

    The Pathway to Becoming a Level 4 and Level 5
    Organization: An Overview of the Five Key Ingredients to Improvement
    Independence Enterprise, Inc. Considers the Five Key Ingredients to Improvement
    Following the Improvement Pathway
    Summary of the Five Ingredients Necessary to Break Out of the Improvement Trap
    Which Came First at Toyota: The Tools or These Ingredients?
    Independence Enterprise Decides to Analyze the Value It Creates for Customers
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Execution—Following the Path

    Ingredient 1: Customer Value Develop a Meaningful Business Value Proposition to Drive Improvement Actions
    Independence Enterprise Assesses Its Value to Its Customers
    Principles to Consider Regarding How Your Organization Improves Value to Your Customers
    Customer Value Should Drive Improvement
    A Strategy Is an Improvement Hypothesis
    Make Sure You Have a Deep Understanding of Value
    Apply the 80/20 Rule: Which Customers Value What You Do?
    Understand the Rule of 16
    Understanding Customer Requirements
    Independence Enterprise Applies the 80/20 Rule to Its Customers
    Independence Enterprise Reassesses How Well It Delivers Value to Customers
    Evaluating Policy Deployment at Independence
    Reviewing Independence’s Mojo
    Identifying Strategic Value and Improvement Opportunities at Independence
    Seeing Reality: Independence Enterprise’s Improvement Activities Weren’t Effective
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Deployment Actions to Apply Customer Value Principles

    Ingredient 2: Engage People
    Leaders Create an Environment Where People Can Do Their Best Work
    Independence Enterprise Evaluates How Engaged Its Employees Are
    Principles to Consider Regarding Whether Your Organization’s Employees Are Truly Engaged in Their Work
    Making the Case for Improving Employee Engagement
    Create an Environment of Trust
    Challenge People to Improve Their Critical Thinking Skills
    Employees Who Are Engaged in Their Work Will Actively Innovate
    Employee Engagement at W. L. Gore: A Case Study
    Ensure Fairness in Compensation and Rewards
    Profit-Indexed Performance Pay Systems
    When Employees are Engaged, Phenomenal Results Can Occur: A Case Study
    Assessing the Engagement Level of Independence Employees
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Deployment Actions to Engage Employees

    Ingredient 3: Key Metrics Focus on the Vital Few, Meaningful Metrics; Avoid Drowning in Irrelevant Details
    Independence Enterprise Evaluates Its Key Performance Metrics
    Getting the Metrics Right: What You Can Learn from Baseball Stats
    Principles to Consider Regarding How Well Your Organization’s
    Key Metrics Reflect Overall Performance
    True North Performance Metrics
    How Do Goals Fit into Performance Metrics?
    The Ugly Side of Performance Metrics
    The Month-End Panic
    The Purpose and Use of Metrics
    Customer Value and the 80/20 Rule
    Customer Value and the Net Promoter Score
    Customer Value and Target Costs
    Engage People Metrics
    Process Thinking Metrics
    Cascading the Metrics from One Level to the Next
    Get the Right Metrics Visual Methods
    Metric Development Tools
    Lean Accounting
    Independence Enterprise Develops New Insights into the Use of Metrics
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Deployment Actions for Better (More Useful) Metrics
    Metrics Evaluation Checklist
    Metrics Development Steps

    Ingredient 4: Process Thinking Maximize Cross‑Functional Process Performance and Foster Deeper Process Understanding, Innovation, and Execution of the Best Work Practices
    Independence Enterprise’s Functional Groups Did Not Work Together
    Principles to Consider Regarding Whether Your Organization’s Departments Are Truly Working Together
    Stretch Your Thinking beyond Your Direct Roles and Responsibilities
    Redefining Our Mental Models for Business Processes
    Step A: Clarify Customer Requirements
    Step B: Streamline Value Creation Processes
    Step C: Align Support Systems
    Typical Support Systems
    What to Avoid with Support Systems
    Managing Support Systems for Overall Business Performance
    A Support Systems Improvement Case Study: The JK Manufacturing Company
    Support Systems Conclusions
    Maintaining a Focus
    The Process Improvement Menu: Tools, Concepts, and Methods
    Process Thinking Stories
    Total Costs and Process Thinking (Cost of Outsourcing)
    Developing Process Thinking at Independence Enterprise
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Deployment Actions for Better Process Thinking/Understanding

    Ingredient 5: The Executive Mindset Focus on Customer Value, People Development, Process Performance, and Business Improvement Outcomes, Not Solely on Savings
    Independence Enterprise Assesses Its Own Executive Mindset
    Principles to Consider Regarding Your Organization’s Executive Mindset
    Using Strategy Deployment to Find True North
    Basic Steps for Strategic Deployment
    Case Example of Strategy Deployment
    Don’t Go Nuts with It: Too Much of a Good Thing Is Not a Good Thing
    Conducting Gemba Walks—A Reality Check
    Strength of Character Is a Litmus Test for Leadership Credibility
    Being Part of a Larger Purpose
    A Radical Whack at Who Adds Value
    Transformation at Nissan Motor Company: A Case Study
    Governance Should Focus on the Big Picture, Not a Narrow Slice of the Business (Savings)
    Developing a One-Page Plan
    Independence Enterprise Develops Its One-Page Plan
    How Independence Enterprise Has Changed
    Chapter Wrap-Up: Deployment Actions to Apply the Principles

    Assessing Your Organization’s Improvement Maturity Level
    Assessing Business Progress within an Industry
    Take the Quick Test Again to Assess Your Organization’s Improvement Maturity
    Assessing Improvement Maturity
    Five Missing Ingredients Are Not a Magic Pill
    Calibrating the Scoring
    Rating Standards for the Improvement Maturity (IM) Assessment
    Assessing Your Organization’s Improvement Maturity (IM) Level
    Summarizing the Assessment of Your Organization’s Improvement Level
    Interpreting the Results of Your Assessment
    Using the Assessment Results
    A Few Closing Thoughts

    Biography

    Michael Bremer, Brian McKibben

    ... a must read book for all senior executives seeking to change the culture of their organization and drive it to a level 4 or 5 on the Improvement Maturity Curve. We have all suffered from the difficulty of sustaining improvement ... this book lays out the sustaining process in a simple, common sense way that is easy to read.
    —Basem Hishmeh, Chairman, Sigma-Netics, Inc.

    We are entering into a Reset global economy, where a New Normal has clearly been established, filled with much peril and much opportunity, yet with an uncertain path forward for all. Now along comes a book focused on Improvement that can help you avoid the Trap, and develop a path that avoids peril, takes advantage of opportunity, and drives Twenty First century success.
    —Dan McDonnell, Lean Initiative manager, General Electric Transportation

    My cynicism of the quality field is based on hundreds of theoretical books on the subject. They seem to serve little purpose other than the author’s pontification of what they think they know, or perhaps serve as a platform for the speaking circuit. Mr. Bremer brings an exception to this otherwise commoditized quality industry. He provides a practical, how-to guide for the organization’s improvement all the way to the all important bottom line. His concepts, told through the parable of a real life situation, Independence Enterprise, Inc., give it a feel of a modern day The Goal, the epoch bible of efficiency by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Mr. Bremer elaborates on RELATIVE gains whereby one compares oneself to their competitors, industry, and even global economy vs. the all too popular ABSOLUTE measure where one measures oneself against oneself. Finally, an author that gets it ... .
    —Donald R. McNeeley, Ph.D., President & COO, Chicago Tube and Iron Company

    Providing methods and metrics for effecting true change, Escape the Improvement Trap highlights how to avoid common improvement traps that inhibit many organizations from rising above the rest. Written by two experts who have dedicated their careers to quality improvement … separates itself from other improvement books by looking at why most companies rarely achieve anything more than an average level of improvement maturity. … Bremer and McKibben consider a variety of situations at Independence Enterprise, a fictional company, based on their own real experiences. They elaborate on the principles that should come into play, look at what Independence Enterprise is doing right and wrong, and suggest deployment actions to help readers apply the principles to their own organization. Bremer, who lead the creation of a company-wide improvement initiative for Beatrice Companies, has served as a Senior Engagement Manager for Motorola University and McKibben, a founding partner of the Cumberland Group-Chicago, has held management roles at several manufacturing companies. … Escape the Improvement Trap is a practical, how-to guide to performance improvement for senior management. ... easy to read, explains concepts simply, and provides concrete examples.
    Sirreadalot.org, December 2010