Senior PM sharing his experience on how to do continuous improvement

Hi,

I’m Afaf, a project manager with more than 10 years of expertise. I am working as a service manager on an international e-commerce project. Through this article, I will expose the main points/issues encountered in the project and how we were implementing continuous improvement to enhance the prformance of the CDS (Customer Delivery Center).

Why Continuous Improvement

During my time on the service center project, I noticed a few key areas where we could do better. Although our team was doing well in handling daily operations and keeping the customer happy, we weren’t really measuring their satisfaction.

A big problem was our Customer Delivery Service (CDS) didn’t have a good system for getting and using feedback. Customers only gave feedback once a year, which wasn’t enough. They felt like we were just doing our jobs instead of being proactive or offering new ideas. When they suggested improvements, we made changes, but they weren’t happy about having to point these things out. They felt it wasn’t their job to tell us what to fix.

I remember one instance when we got an alert from a steering committee or an email about a customer who had been frustrated for months over an issue, and our team had no idea. Another time, a developer came up with a great idea to improve the customer’s product. He mentioned it in a daily meeting, but nothing happened afterward.

Looking back, I saw why we were falling short. We didn’t give customers regular opportunities to provide feedback. When we did, we didn’t make it easy for them, to be completely honest. We also didn’t have a clear plan for continuous improvement, and there wasn’t an easy way for anyone to suggest ideas. Plus, we didn’t have a system to turn those suggestions into real changes.

This project made it clear where we needed to improve. We needed to get regular, honest feedback from customers and have a clear process for making improvements.

Here is the way we moved in order to get things done correctly :

Define The Improvement Strategy

Our improvement strategy is centered around two main areas:

Performance Improvement

• The goal is to enhance the performance of the Customer Delivery Service (CDS).
• This will involve focusing on governance and process optimization.

Product Improvement

• The aim is to enhance the client’s product.
• For example, if the client has a website, product improvement will involve leveraging our expertise to maximize the site’s enhancement.
• This will concentrate on business aspects and meeting product requirements.

Continuous Improvement Approach : DMAIC Wheel

5-Step DMAIC Wheel

• The improvement process follows a 5-step DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) wheel.
• Each step is repeated with every rotation of the wheel.
• The entire cycle typically takes between 3 to 6 months to complete.

KPI-Centered Approach

• The process begins by defining the main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Every improvement initiative is directly linked to a KPI

Regular Ritual

• There is a continuous improvement ritual, conducted monthly or as needed, depending on the context.

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Example : Ishikawa / cause-effect diagram analysis of KPI​

KPI Correspondence

• Each KPI aligns with a major delivery objective.
• Analysis starts from the KPI and moves towards identifying improvement metrics that impact the KPI.

Impact of Circumstances on KPIs

• The value of a KPI is influenced by various circumstances, which are measured through improvement metrics.

Example

• Productivity KPI: Productivity is represented by a specific KPI.
• Using a Fishbone Diagram (Ishikawa), we can analyze all potential causes of a decline in productivity.

Product Improvement

Improvement Proposals

• Includes both technical and functional improvement suggestions for the product.
• Contributions come from the entire team.
• Proposals are filtered and validated before being added to the product backlog.

Innovation Committee (Annual)

• Reviews new features introduced by the editor.
• Examines existing market possibilities and conducts benchmarking.
• Conducts meetings with the customer on-site to discuss these innovations.

Technical Committee

• Dedicated to discussing technical improvements and advancements.

Templates to impelment Continuous improvement KPIs :

Here are some screen shots of the tempaltes you can use for free to implement the KPIs per activity :

MOC , BUILD or SUPPORT

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