Continuing with our previous post’s theme of staying the course, if you truly want to achieve maximum results from an improvement effort, it’s essential to have an effective implementation and sustainability plan.

Consider that, even when people excel at identifying major opportunities for improvement, if they don’t execute, they don’t make gains. In our work with hundreds of organizations, we have observed that the most successful are outstanding at execution.

These execution plans involve the use Continuous Improvement (CI) tools for measurement, applying accepted best business practices such as the “4 Disciplines of Execution” (see related post), as well as a maintaining focus on the following “top 10” implementation best practices:

1. Get senior leaders to become actively involved
2. Identify clear project plans for delivering results, including measures and milestones
3. Engage team members and stakeholders
4. Set expectations and consequences — both positive and negative
5. Set protocols for monitoring progress on a timely basis
6. Develop an organized structure and an activity / accomplishment reporting plan – communication matters!
7. Identify and making prudent use of prioritization tools
8. Organizational support for structure and reporting
9. Corrective action models (not punitive) when results are sub-par
10. Strategic actions to lock in the gains