Blog

Last April at the time of 'Apprenticeship Week', I posted a reflection on how most companies and training academies seem to overlook the importance of including Continuous Improvement as a core skill set within any scheme of apprentice development. With apprenticeship levies being a current topic and one where employers will be looking to get the most from their investment, [...]

With less than five weeks till most break up for Christmas, many out there may be nervous about achieving annual targets, considering the usual seasonal distractions. As the holiday spirit takes hold, Christmas parties and holiday planning can challenge employee focus and momentum, risking productivity at a key time. However, avoiding the title of office Scrooge can be tricky in [...]

Many business leaders would immediately respond with confidence that a clear selection process exists to focus improvement effort in their organisation. Only by drilling down into that response does the picture often become more opaque. One reason is that we often call efforts to resolve problematic situations ‘improvements’, when in fact they are really problem solving. Fire-fighting today’s problems is [...]

The long fought debate around the EU referendum, a pivotal point in British history, has been fought with debate, insults and at time factual discussion. The question not asked enough in many companies however, is are you ‘in’ or ‘out’ of continuous improvement (CI). Within the camp of organisations declaring to be ‘doing improvement’, or being a ‘lean company’, there [...]

How often do you finish a days work disappointed at how few important to-do tasks or business objectives you have started as intended? Of course this will always happen to an extent, but the frequency with which it happens determines if it needs attention. Using the cliché, working on the urgent rather than the important stuff often allures us to [...]