Let’s take a look at an example of continuous improvement practices at the company Atlassian.
Atlassian, a software company that offers products to product managers and development teams, has successfully created and sustained a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. Atlassian achieves this in a few different ways.
Firstly, to drive innovation, employees are given 20% of their allocated work time to spend on personal projects. [1] This is modelled on Google’s innovation strategy, where personal projects often can be transformed into creative new features or products for the organisation. This strategy requires Atlassian to allow their employees the time to work on these personal projects, which is an expensive risk for the company since 20% of employees’ time is given away to experimentation. However, to ensure that this time is used productively, employees focus their personal projects on the team, how it operates, and what they do.
Secondly, Atlassian cultivated a culture of continuous improvement to support innovation. Specifically, Atlassian split their employees into small teams and encouraged them to own their career path by embracing and identifying challenges and strengths. What they found was that successful teams handled challenges differently to other teams, so to help those who struggled, Atlassian implemented a workshopping resource called the Team Playbook. They gathered the practices that successful teams used and created short, purposeful workshops and exercises that enabled teams to learn and adopt these practices. [2]
For example, Atlassion’s Health Monitor [3] helps teams to assess their strengths and weaknesses. Once some weaknesses have been identified, teams and employees can use other plays to strengthen these areas.
Instructions: How do you implement continuous improvement practices?
Taking dedicated work time to innovate and find continuous improvement opportunities can be an expensive cost for an organisation. Considering what you have just learned, complete the following:
- Explain in a brief paragraph:
- How might you go about implementing effective continuous improvement practices?
- What might you do differently to Atlassian?
Implementing effective continuous improvement practices involves establishment of an organisational culture that values ongoing development, adopts and utilise specific methodologies, as well as ensures active engagement from all levels of the organization.
There is also a need to create a reward system that recognise contributions, regularly review and iterate on improvement initiatives.
By following these steps, organizations can effectively implement continuous improvement practices, leading to enhanced efficiency, productivity, and overall performance.
I will implement effective continuous improvement practices in our team operations by starting with training of my team members about innovation ideas. What they need to know about the topic, the importance, how we are to incorporate it into our system and results of it if is properly managed.
I will make the environment favourable for the implementation of the best and cost effective innovation ideas and also reward the best ideas. This will encourage every members of the team to come up with different innovative ideas that will promote the team.
To Atlassian, I will suggest that a periodic feedback is required from the team created and these feedbacks will be worked on and the best one will be accepted. These will be done by a group of team members assigned for the work.
To make continuous improvement a habit, I will establish a culture of continuous learning and improvement so as to make sure the workers learn how to identify their strength and weaknesses, in order to grow the strength. Provision for monthly trainings to equip the workers and provision for research adventure.
Establish a culture of continuous improvement. Define clear objectives and metrics using SMART goals and relevant KPIs. Implement structured methodologies like PDCA cycle. Conduct regular reviews.
I would conduct regular review to ensure productivity
Plan Do Check Act (now PDCA). Based on the Deming wheel, a set of measures aimed at continuous improvement defined by indicators, it involves four stages of achievement:
analysis of the situation to be improved and/or the problems to be solved ;
implementation of a solution based on experiments, improvements and derived approaches;
concrete evaluation of the results obtained ;
identification of the aspects to be corrected and of the origin of the errors or deficiencies noted.
Wise use of skills, increased productivity and satisfaction of staff and management are the targeted goals.
Implement the Kaizen method
The term comes from “kai”, a Japanese word meaning change, and “zen”, which refers to what is good and improved. The kaizen method became popular after the publication of Imai Mazaaki’s book “The Key to Japanese Competitiveness”. Its main objective is to maximize productivity and efficiency.
For an effective continuous improvement practices involves creating a good culture that encourages learning, experimentation, adaptation, and patience . To get on with, I would ensure that employees have a structured yet flexible template to identify and address areas for improvement…
As a product manager, I will simply implement the 4 pillars of continuous improvement.
Customer-ccentricity, product quality improvement, process efficiency, business profitability, and put to effective use the PCDA process of plan, do, check, and act.
This already embodies whatever methods any product manager would want to employ for the continuous improvement of products.
What I will ensure to encourage is building a continuous improvement culture in our organization, and I will even go as far as rewarding employees who stand out in performing their tasks while being involved in the continuous improvement processes, be it in bringing up innovative ideas or innovations or in developing more effective feedback collection and analytical methods.
The Atlassian way is fantastic in that it fosters innovation in employees and challenges them to greater accomplishments on a product, but it is also a risky method, hence the support and structures built by Atlassian to mitigate against risk. But what I will add to the Atlassian way of continuous improvement is selecting a group of customers as testers alongside the insiders or team testers of marginal improvements right from the very beginning of the process.
This will further reduce risks if considering the Atlassian way, especially if it is a software product
To implement effective continuous improvement practices, I would prioritize incremental, bite-sized improvements within existing workflows, rather than dedicating large blocks of time or resources. This approach, known as “Kaizen bursts,” encourages teams to regularly reflect on their processes and identify small, high-impact improvements. Unlike Atlassian’s dedicated “ShipIt” days, which set aside significant time for innovation, my approach would integrate continuous improvement into daily work, fostering a culture of ongoing refinement and efficiency. This approach minimizes additional costs while maximizing incremental gains, ensuring sustainable and practical continuous improvement.
To foster innovation, employees will receive regular training and participate in monthly workshops where they will be encouraged to undertake personal projects aimed at improving the company’s product.
To promote a culture of continuous improvement and support innovation, employees will be encouraged to identify their strengths and weaknesses while working in teams.
The strengths and achievements of each team will be communicated and used to train other employees and their team members in organized workshops.
To implement effective continuous improvement practices, we would establish a feedback loop that involves regular collection and analysis of customer feedback, employee insights, and performance metrics. This would be complemented by adopting agile methodologies to iteratively refine our processes and products. Regular training and development sessions for employees would ensure they are equipped with the latest skills and knowledge. Additionally, fostering a culture of open communication and collaboration would encourage innovative ideas and prompt identification of improvement areas.
Differentiating from Atlassian
Unlike Atlassian, which primarily focuses on software development and collaboration tools, we would prioritize enhancing the customer experience in both our physical and online store. This includes offering personalized recommendations based on customer preferences and maintaining a strong emphasis on product quality through rigorous quality control processes. We would also invest heavily in local community engagement and sustainability initiatives, differentiating ourselves through a commitment to social and environmental responsibility.