|
||
|
|
Save 45% when you buy the CEO Series. It covers the ten core business processes and comes with nine fully-editable manuals for:
|
|
How Does Top Management Show Commitment to Change and Improvement?
| by Chris Anderson |
|
|
|||
| Categories: Business Process Improvement, Knowledge Management Tags: business process, Business Process Improvement, change management, ITIL, lean, six sigma | |||||
Change management is at the heart of programs like ITIL, lean, ISO, or six sigma. Change and improvement needs to occur on a regular basis, but it does not happen by accident. It takes commitment from top management. How does top management show their commitment?
Two ways – budget and a show! That’s right you need to fuel innovation for change and improvement and budgets are what top management understand. Company leaders demonstrate their commitment to change and improvement by making budget available for it to happen. But spending money on change and improvement that nobody knows about does not deliver much actual change does it? You need to get the word out and that takes some kind of show.
Do You Schedule Change and Improvement?
First, let’s look at budgets. Nothing happens without a budget and only top management makes the budget. And by budget I am talking about more than just money, it also takes time to spend the budget. Time is money right? Not exactly. In business, time is as precious a resource as money. Top management can allocate a budget for change but, with backorders, development delays, rush orders, and other customer demands, can you really afford to trade valuable production time for improvement?
You may have a budget for such things as training, communication, audits, corrective and preventive actions, and management review. But do you have the time to spend the budget?
Production time is seen as valuable. And what do you do with a valuable resource like production time? You probably use a production schedule to make sure that that time is accounted for and allocated. Do you have a schedule for improvement? You may schedule training, audits and management review but do you also schedule corrective and preventive action? It’s like preventive maintenance, change and improvement must be scheduled. The more change you schedule, the more improvement you get.
Do You Communicate Change and Improvement?
Second, do you have a communications calendar? And how do you coordinate all this change and improvement? Changes and improvements are news to your organization. You have to get the word out and communicate the news so others can profit from the changes and improvements. I like to think of it as a news show.
All of this activity must be coordinated.  You need a news staff to write, produce, and distribute your news program. Your news show should have a regular time slot, format, and an editor or anchor for your program. Perhaps featured stories regarding training events, Kaizen of the month, and progress on major changes or improvement objectives. Be creative. Produce videos, a newsletter, a change wall, or skits for the changes.
How much do you budget for your news program? Major software changes get money for new software and software customization. Typically less time and money is spent on communicating the changes. This may be due to the lack of any formal communications program. Start a news show.
Showing Commitment to Change and Improvement
So the next time you are making your budget for the year, think of a time budget to go with your financial budget. Make a change and improvement schedule to go with your production schedule. Then identify a news staff to make the communications that get the word out. Delivering change and improvement is like producing a big show. You have to budget for the production of the show (the change and improvement development activities) and you then have to have the show, on a regular basis, just like the news.
Your management commitment to change and improvement will be demonstrated by the time and money you budget as well the quality of the change and improvement show you produce.
Related Articles:
This and more articles like this can be found at www.bizmanualz.com. This article may be reprinted freely as long as this resource box is left intact.
