Why Continuous Improvement Efforts Fail Without the Right Tools

January 1, 2020

At Amplify, our mission is to help enterprise corporations bring their strategy execution approach into the 21st century. Our corporate project management software offers the services of a consulting firm in a convenient, cloud-based platform, empowering your organization to outline your most important goals, turn them into actionable plans, then execute to achieve them. Continuous improvement (CI) is a management strategy adopted by many large corporations, but it's a hard one to get right – and often, continuous improvement efforts fail because they lack the right tools.

How Enterprise Software Can Enable Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement, also known by its Japanese name of Kaizen, is an approach based on constantly changing your business systems to improve the organization over time. But while Kaizen can produce incredible results, it's easy for progress to get derailed. Here are a few common reasons that continuous improvement fails if it isn't grounded in the right tools:

  • The Goals Aren't Clear: At face level, the 'goal' of continuous improvement seems obvious – to improve continuously! But this isn't really a goal. Without the use of SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), it can become impossible to know what's most important for improvement or what improvements should move toward.
  • There's No Measurement: Another problem is measuring progress on key CI goals. Without a set of metrics to track that reflect progress on key goals, there's no way to know when things are working and when they're not, which can cause continuous improvement to stall.
  • Lack of Alignment: Another common issue is lack of employee alignment. It's not enough to decide on CI goals at the leadership level and expect employees to carry them out: the goals and processes must be effectively cascaded through every level of the organization to support goal alignment.

Try Our Business Transformation Software

These problems are incredibly common for businesses that implement CI, and they all stem from a lack of the right tools. An effective business transformation platform allows you to set and define clear goals, cascade them through every team in the organization, and measure progress in real time – and Amplify can help. Our corporate project management software empowers you to reap the benefits of continuous improvement no matter what your organization's needs.

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