The Power of Continuous Improvement

In an age of over-planning and under-doing, more continuous improvement is in desperate need. But is it also the secret to success?

Let’s not be too hasty. After all, many have gone in search for the secret to success like early conquistadors seeking the Fountain of Youth. Those intrepid explorers of old usually found nothing by disappointment. So too have their modern day equivalents. So let’s be smart about this.

Let’s begin by examining what continuous improvement is and is not.

The Truth and Lies of Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve. (Shocker, right?!) Be it a product, service, lifestyle, relationship, career or any other thing, continuous improvement offers an approach to positive growth.

It’s a process. It’s not a solution.

Loads of folks that lust for overnight success confuse this. They believe that continuous improvement may reveal the secrets of success. A secret implies an answer. In truth, continuous improvement is more a question (or series of questions).

It’s a journey, not a destination.

This continuous improvement journey favors “incremental” improvements over time versus “breakthrough” improvements all at once. It’s iterative by design. The thinking is that large-scale change is too invasive to control, too negligent of causes-and-effects and too traumatic to implement.

The bottom-line: Singular big changes don’t stick. Frequent little changes do.

Continuous Improvement in Action

I applied continuous improvement to great effect during my days as an interactive web application program manager. Agile methodology underpinned my teams, fueling our creativity and camaraderie. As stated in the now-famous Agile Manifesto, continuous improvement is essential:

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

While the Agile Manifesto is geared towards progressive software development, Agile principles are visible in many other models of success. Take Japanese innovation and their Kaizen method.

Kaizen became famous thanks to Masaaki Imai’s book “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.” The translation of Kaizen breaks down like this: kai (“change”) zen (“good”) is “improvement.” In the current-state of technology innovation, Agile and Kaizen are largely supplemental – elements of both can be blended together into hybrid methods.

Continuous Improvement as Belief System

Belief systems are operating models for interpreting information, reaching decisions, and taking actions. A belief system is only as strong as it’s guiding principles and purpose. Agile Methodology has 12 powerful guiding principles and a razor-sharp purpose. Continuous improvement (though more general) is no different:

• The core principle of continuous improvement is the (self) reflection of processes. (Feedback)
• The purpose of continuous improvement is the identification, reduction, and elimination of suboptimal processes. (Efficiency)
• The emphasis of continuous improvement is on incremental, continuous steps rather than giant leaps. (Evolution)

If that’s a bit to academic for your taste, Chris Guillebeau offers a more personal (but equally potent) explanation of continuous improvement from his own experiences:

Lesson #1: It’s OK to just get stuff done.

If you have an idea you’re working on, don’t wait too long to put it out to the world. Of course you want it to be good, but it’s true what they say about the perfect being the enemy of the good.

Lesson #2: It’s usually good to go back to something later.

The nice thing about continuous improvement is that it can make a good thing even better.

And there you have it, the long awaited secret to success! Just add water and watch continuous improvement bloom into abundant triumphs. In no time at all, your career will be more lucrative, your health will be more vibrant, and your lifestyle will be more fulfilling. Dead-simple, right?

Err, sorry but not quite.

I’ll admit, in the light of continuous improvement, overnight success may seem possible. Near-term success may appear a gimme. While your results will vary, loyalty to continuous improvement will indeed lead you to success. But not in a year, or three months, and especially not overnight.

Success – genuine, sustainable, and scalable success – takes times. It takes patience. And above all else, it takes effort.

Enter practice, and lots of it.

10,000 Hours to Overnight Success

With respect to Allen Iverson, practice is damn important and necessary.

But just how much practice does it take to succeed?

According to Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, the answer is a whopping 10,000 hours. Ericsson’s 10,000 hours rule (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success) suggests that mastery of any skill requires repeated and deliberate exposure on a ginormous scale.

This isn’t shallow practice either. It’s not simply about the number; we all know that quantity alone is insufficient. Quality matters. And when it comes to practice, quality takes the form of feedback.

Mike Speiser agrees. As he writes in this excellent GigaOM article:

Practice makes perfect, right? Yet in business you often find people who have been doing something for a long time and just aren’t very good at it. Why? Lack of feedback. [emphasis added]

Speiser goes on to illustrate the imperative of feedback to growth and success by contrasting two hypothetical (yet real-world based) companies: one a large web company and the other a web startup. Both are fighting hard to launch a product. The large company elects a year schedule, allows scope-creep to occur, launches late, and promptly receives bad press. The web startup elects a 90-day schedule, nukes scope-creep, launches on time (way ahead of the large company), but also promptly receives bad press due to limited features.

Both failed out of the gate. But only one has a winning process: the startup.

Thanks to their continuous improvement process, the startup churns out new features every week. By the time they reach the launch date of the large company (remember, the startup launched way ahead), they’ve released a feature set that’s hit a nerve and attracting rave attention.

And just like that, after hours and hours, the web startup is declared an overnight success.

Where’s the large company? Back at the drawing board.

Success is a Formula, Silly

So, is continuous improvement the secret to success?

No…and yes.

Continuous improvement disproves the belief in overnight success as categorically false. Even when companies, individuals or teams are heralded by onlookers as instant breakthroughs, the behind-the-scenes truth is far less glamorous and far more sweaty. But, of course, everyone likes a fresh rags-to-riches story. So the press will continue to invent them, I’m sure.

Fear not, however. Continuous improvement does yield the secret to success: its formula.

This formula isn’t advanced calculus. It’s a simple function perhaps best described as blood, sweat and tears. More practically, the formula is:

Success = ( practice + feedback + adjustment ) x time

Nothing mystical about that, which is the point. Success cannot be conjured out of thin air in a fortnight. It’s earned. And although sweat is the primary ingredient, how sweet it is when you reap what you sow.