Since COVID19 came into our lives, EVERYTHING CHANGED. This represented a challenge in the way in which I had to confront my own theories related to continuous improvement. If COVID19 is a problem, how to be congruent with the idea I have shared with many others about the fact that ”problems are treasures”, if this is true it means that COVID19 is a problem, therefore it represents an opportunity for improvement. Is this true?

Before COVID19 arrived, from working in a global organization I realized that the idea of ​​holding Kaizen events in person, had many limitations in relation to, for example, travel costs and people’s time availability. In such a way that although conducting face-to-face Kaizen workshops had already become a common practice in the organization, I always saw the opportunity of how to deploy this type of workshops virtually.

Fortunately, before C19 arrived, I was practicing and doing some tests trying virtual Kaizen, which led me to conclude that it is possible to do Kaizen workshops in virtual environments. I am not suggesting that it is easy; I realized that I had many challenges that had to be overcome, but it was an idea that I thought had a lot of potential.

When COVID19 arrived, I saw the opportunity to be able to quickly implement some of the Kaizen concepts and principles with teams in a virtual way. This also forced me to reinvent and solve many of the challenges that arise when cross-functional team need to make improvements when they are geographically separated, often working in different time zones.

Based on what I have experienced in the last few months, let me share 5 lessons learned about how to continue advancing in the application of continuous improvement, in virtual work environments.

1. Improvement methodology. In virtual environments it becomes even more important to introduce some kind of simple methodology to guide the work and efforts of the team. A few days ago I had a call where they were asking me if doing a Virtual Kaizen workshop made sense or not. It was very clear to me that simply sharing the suggested methodological process to solve the problem helped this team, to have a better work structure to address the problem. Although applying this methodology virtually represents a challenge, having clarity in the vision and deliverables of each of the stages that are expected to be achieved for each of the phases of the methodology helped the team to know that it was possible. In particular, the DMAIC improvement methodology (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control), is extremely useful since it is a simple methodology that is self-explanatory.

2. Divide and conquer. Working in virtual environments presents difficult challenges to overcome specially battling the idea that “I am busy”. So in my experience when doing Virtual Kaizen workshops, it is essential to break down the entire Kaizen in small work packages that I called, Kaizen Missions. These missions are linked to the previous point I made regarding the methodology. For example, a first mission that you could present to the team is to complete the Definition stage of the methodology. This mission will consist of a series of subtasks that the teams will have to develop collaboratively in a virtual environment. e.g. complete a project charter, capture the voice of the customer, etc. Focus ONLY ON THE ESSENTIALS (eliminate the waste that sometimes we generate within the continuous improvement methodology)

3. Accountability. Accountability of the Kaizen team is essential for every mission. The Kaizen team needs to show the progress made for each of the missions with specific delivery times. It is also important during this accountability session that the Kaizen team is clear about what needs to be done and the expectations of the deliverable of the next mission.  

4. Visible leadership. One of the non-negotiable of this type of effort is the participation in at least the Kaizen accountability sessions of those leaders that are linked to the changes and with the decisions that need to be made as a result of the Kaizen work. It is through this participation that the leaders will be sending a clear message to the Kaizen participants of the importance and the level of priority that the Kaizen effort represents.

5. Simple Templates. Beyond the type of platform and SW that members or organizations want to use. It is essential that collaborative spaces are available online. This is a place where the Kaizen team can consolidate their learning and can collaborate from anywhere and at any time. These templates must be clear and easy to understand. One practice that I implement is to add simple videos to each of the templates (missions) so that when the Kaizen team have questions they could easily watch those videos to better understand the purpose and type of information that is requested.

Conclusions.

Of course, there are many lessons learned about how to do Kaizen events, but I wanted to focus on those lessons that I consider vital to increase the probability of success in the application of these events.

For those people with a passion for continuous improvement, we have to realize that these times are demanding that we apply the concepts of continuous improvement to ourselves. So that we can achieve better results. 

These challenges are forcing us to improve and innovate every day to ensure that the culture of continuous improvement continues to strengthen and continue to grow within organizations. Please answer the following question so we can learn from your own lessons learned during this challenging times. 

1. What are the challenges that you or your organization have faced when trying to improve or solve a problem in a virtual way? What are some of the techniques or tools that have or have not served to solve it?