Continuous Improvement

Question 1

What are the key factors necessary to properly realize Continuous Improvement?

Answer 1

• Adapt the project process by periodically reviewing and integrating team practices, organizational culture and delivery goals
• Conduct frequent retrospectives and improvement experiments in order to continually enhance the effectiveness of the team, project and organization
• Seek feedback on the product incremental delivery and frequent demonstrations
• Create and environment of continued learning by providing opportunities for people to develop their skills in order to develop a more productive team of generalizing specialists
• Challenge existing process elements by performing a value stream analysis and removing waste
• Create systemic improvements by disseminating knowledge and practices across projects and organizational boundaries in order to avoid re-occurrence of identified problems and improve the effectiveness of the organization as a whole

Question 2

What is value stream analysis?

Answer 2

The value stream is the entire collection of activities necessary to produce and deliver a product or service. Value stream analysis separates those activities that contribute to value creation from activities that create waste, and identifies opportunities for improvement.

Question 3

What is the Deming cycle?

Answer 3

Plan-Do-Chen-Act (PDCA)

Question 4

What are some of the characteristics of Kaizen?

Answer 4

• japanese for “change for the better”
• it is continuous
• focuses on processes
• Unknown results
• the whole company can participate

Question 5

What does Process Analysis entail?

Answer 5

• Breakdown of the process flow
• Identify inputs, tools and techniques, outputs
• Understand how the process works
• Identify opportunities for improvement

Question 6

What is Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)?

Answer 6

• identify and address all failures starting with largest
• failure modes (What could happen)
• failure causes (Why would it happen)
• failure effects (Consequences)
• value stream analysis -> maximizing the amount of work not done

Question 7

What are some key areas a team should run self assessment periodically

Answer 7

• Thinking
• Collaborating
• Releasing
• Planning
• Developing