And now for the three laws of improvement, and unleashing the power of your people for improvement project. It's time to improve a process. So pick a process that you know well in your organization, preferably one that causes grief for the people working in the organization, or for its customers. Walk the floor of the process, visit the offices of people speak to everyone involved in the process, get their views about it, and find out what specifically in the process causes problems. Consider the purpose of the process from the point of view of the customer. What is the customer's requirements in terms of price, service, delivery and quality?

Ask these questions Who are the customers of the process? What outcomes do they actually want? What do those customers value about the process as it currently works? And what do those customers not value about the process? Then moving on. If possible, speak to the customers of the products or services that the process produces, and find out what they dislike about it.

Use sticky notes to map the process. Identify the constraints, the bottlenecks, the delays and risk points in the process. And ask the people who work in the process to review your map and amend it as necessary. Then ask the team to suggest possible solutions to the constraints, the bottlenecks, the delays and the risk points in the process. Work those up into proposal for management and ask permission to form an improvement team to start to address the problems of the process. Good luck.