Identifying Improvement Priorities

This step determines the potential significance and priority of improvement opportunities and defines which possible improvements could be implemented with a low degree of effort and resistance (early/quick-win candidates). In this step, the organization determines or confirms the nature of the required change program for the early win and develops an overall improvement approach.

Techniques

To determine which solutions could be implemented in the short-term and which will become part of the long-term solution, you can use three techniques:

• Application of stakeholder criteria

• Cost/benefit analysis

• Negotiation

Lessons Learned

Each solution might deliver greatly varying degrees of improvement and require greatly varying degrees of effort and implementation time. Some will entail significant overall renewal; others will require just a simple, fast change (early win). Analyze problems, root causes, potential for improvements, and suggestions for improvements. Then determine the costs and benefits of each change against earlier stakeholder-based project evaluation criteria.

Update the evaluation criteria used for the business case to include the speed and cost of implementation. This will separate changes that need careful design and more time to achieve from those that can be implemented in the near-term.

Obtain suggestions for improvement from front-line staff as well as management. Frequently, those who perform the actual work have already thought about better ways of doing their jobs.

Some early-win changes will be maintained in the major redesign. Others won’t and will be considered throwaways, providing interim benefit only and helping pay for the ultimate solution.

Early wins should impact few organizational units, be quick and inexpensive to implement, have strong support at the top and bottom of the organization, require easy enabler changes, and be low risk.

Try to implement the ideas of the front-line staff even if the benefits aren’t great. This shows that you are listening and helps gain acceptance of the solution. Better yet, plan to have the front-line staff implement changes themselves; get them involved.