Why Continuous Improvement Programmes Fail

Episode 29: Insights from Hugh Alley

If you have worked in a large organisation, you will have seen continuous improvement initiatives come and go with alarming regularity. Everybody knows continuous improvement is a good idea, yet few organizations can pull it off.

This week, we talked with Hugh Alley about why these initiatives fail and what organisations need to do differently to see them succeed. James tells his worst joke (to date), and we discover why most managers cause continuous improvement initiatives to fail.

To find out more:

 Web Sites:

 Mike Rother’s Kata Website - Free resources and background to help you get started.

Kata School UK – LinkedIn – Gemma Jones and Ann Hill. Interesting research and excellent practice in the UK and worldwide. 

 Kata School Cascadia - The most active kata school in the world right now, based in the Pacific Northwest of North America.

 Books:

 Bringing Scientific Thinking to Life – Sylvain Landry – an excellent introduction to the thinking process of Toyota Kata and why it is useful - Start here.

The Toyota Kata Practice Guide – Mike Rother – the definitive “how to” guide is the essential reference on the process of doing Toyota Kata

Giving Wings to Her Team – Tilo Schwarz and Jeff Liker – a novel describing how one young manager learns to do Toyota Kata and saves her plant from being closed. It’s a long book but an engaging read, so worth it.

Toyota Kata Memory Jogger – Jean-Marc Legentil, Marc-Olivier Legentil, Tilo Schwarz – this practical pocket guide breaks down all the steps in great detail. 

Toyota Kata Culture – Mike Rother, Gerd Aulinger – a great guide to how the Toyota Kata can be used up and down an organization, showing how corporate strategy can be driven down to the production floor while still leaving lots of room for creative problem-solving and difficult challenges

And, of course, you can always contact us at [email protected] and [email protected] 

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