Does this sound like you?

"I want to engage my staff to get involved in improving the way our business operates, but everything I try just doesn't seem to have an impact"

If so, you are definitely in the majority. Businesses in almost every industry and sector struggle with getting staff involved in their continuous improvement initiatives, and wrestle with how to better engage their teams in efforts to improve business processes. And even if they do get that figured out and off the ground, it often introduces a new set of challenges; sustaining that momentum.

First, the good news. Your employees WANT to be given the chance to improve your business, to have a voice in process improvement. Now the bad news (or at least the harder news); your management team needs to make it easy for their teams to do so.

So then, how can you make the path improvement easier for your teams? Here are my top 10 tips, tactics and approaches to empower and enable your staff (and you) excited about driving business process improvements, and on to becoming continuous improvement ambassadors for your organization.

Q: Do you know what the biggest room in the world is?
A: The room for improvement.

Dad jokes aside, sometimes just acknowledging to your staff that there are opportunities to improve, not just the business, but their way of working, can be of great help in getting them on board. Every business faces challenges, and ignoring them, spinning them, and sweeping them under the rug does nothing to help. Acknowledge the problems, see them as opportunities, and meet them head on. To really amplify the message, create a safe environment for your staff to bring opportunities forward, and even contribute to solving them.

One of the best ways to build trust with your team members is to be open and transparent with your intentions, your projects, and your progress. Not only will this keep the idea of continuous improvement it top of mind, but your communication tools can be used as a vehicle to accelerate your efforts and impact.

The impact of offering training to your staff is two-fold. First, it ensures your teams have the proper training, ongoing support and the resources they need to get involved with and contribute to, your continuous improvement initiatives. Second, and likely more important (to them at least), is that it also demonstrates a willingness to invest in them and their careers.

“What gets measured gets done.” While the source of that statement is debatable, the sentiment is not. If you want to drive continuous improvement in your organization, make it personal. Establish individual and team performance outcomes and expectations, including KPIs, to obtain the desired effect. The best way to do that is to include continuous improvement objectives in every job description, as well as annual/quarterly/etc. personal development programs.

It’s Friday afternoon. You’ve checked in with your team, your projects are on target, and you’re prepared for next week. Your weekend’s looking bright.

Suddenly, your boss comes to your desk with exciting news. You’ll be heading the next major multi-team project with a key client, and the kickoff is next week. This is great news, but now this specter looms over your weekend. You’ll have to get the project organized ASAP, but with so many stakeholders involved, where do you even start?

The project planning process can be tricky, especially as projects become more complex. According to Forbes, 25% of technology projects fail outright, which is a dismal statistic for project leaders. The good news is you don’t need to be a project management expert — or sacrifice your weekend — to plan a successful project kickoff in a short amount of time. You just need to understand the 8 simple steps of how to write a project plan.

The first step in any project is to define the “what” and “why”. Key stakeholders have the influence and authority to determine whether a project is successful, and their objectives must be satisfied. Even if the project comes from the CEO himself, you still need their buy-in.

Use this initial conversation to get aligned, define goals, and determine the value of the project. In this part of the project planning process, discuss needs, expectations, and establish baselines for project scope, budget, and timeline. This creates a solid base for your project work plan.

Questions you should consider reviewing with stakeholders:

According to executive leaders, a lack of clear goals accounts for 37% of project failure. Without clear goals, you’ll find that the requirements, tasks, and deadlines you set for your project work plan have nothing anchoring them. But now that you have a list of key stakeholder needs and their buy-in, begin to assign them to goals and OKRs. OKRs are a planning and goal setting technique made famous by Intel and Google. Your project should align with your team and company’s OKRs.

Try writing down the project goals in a project plan board and connect them to the stakeholder requirements they address. From there, build out the structure, milestones, and tasks it takes to reach those goals. Milestones can define check-in points throughout the project so that everyone is clear about what progress looks like, what the expectations are, and when they’ll be measured.  

Now that you have the project outlined, your tasks aligned with goals, and buy-in from the team, it’s time to create a project scope document detailing the project elements you’ve listed in step 2.

Look at each deliverable and define the series of tasks that must be completed to accomplish each one. For each task, determine the amount of time it’ll take, the resources necessary, and who will be responsible for execution. Finalize and record the project details so that everyone has a single source of truth. Make the document easily shareable, like in your project management tool, in order to reduce the chance of costly miscommunication.

While preparing project scope documentation should be standard practice, 1 in 4 project managers surveyed in Wellingstone's State of Project Management Survey said that they “never” or “sometimes” prepare standard scoping documents. Creating one ensures you stand out from the crowd and helps everyone stay on the same page.