The Case for Continuous Improvement
Who among us actually enjoys reworking the processes for which we complete our work? We are often asked to do more with less and tend to follow process based on these demands. Sure – we’d all like to revamp the entire cycle of how work gets completed in our offices, but who has the time? It’s a classic catch-22: continue to complete our work simply accepting existing flaws in our workflow or take significant time to completely rework the process to eliminate or minimize those things that slow us down. As much as we’d like to do the latter, most of us continue on with the former, regardless of whether we consciously make the choice.
However, fixing the problems in our processes does not have to involve big, sweeping changes that greatly disrupt our current operations. In reality, the best changes are most often small tweaks in existing processes that, by themselves, make relatively pronounced improvements. Once the first small change is made, we can evaluate the effectiveness of this adjustment and either continue along with the new path or, if no discernible benefit is realized, revert back to the “old” way of doing things. Assuming the change was indeed for the better, we are now a little more efficient at doing our jobs. Continue this cycle of small improvements and within a relatively short period of time, we will have drastically improved the overall process without ever having to completely rehaul the whole system in one fell swoop.
This whole concept has been around for decades. It has often been referred to as “Continuous Improvement” or by the Japanese term “kaizen”, the latter of which became famous as Toyota implemented this methodology on a grand scale in their production facilities. As our small illustration above proved, continuous improvement can be implemented in nearly every process, big or small, with minimal disruption. The message is clear, however: we should never be satisfied with the status quo and always strive to make everything we do just a little better every day. The old way of doing things aren’t necessarily the best simply because that’s the way it’s always been done. In fact, quite the opposite is most often true. Continuous improvement works in part because our challenges are always changing. We are not making changes for change’s sake; rather, we are constantly adapting our ways of doing things to most efficiently stay on top of the game.
At Trident, we embrace the concept of continuous improvement in everything we do. Our Poseidon contract management portal is built on an SaaS platform to allow for near-instant updates as well as affording us the ability to quickly tailor-make solutions for our customers, especially as their challenges continue to change. There is no software, updates or patches to install and when a change needs to be made, all it takes is a call to Trident for us to build exactly what you need, when you need it, at a price that is usually a fraction of the cost of other less robust offerings.
More than likely, you are keenly familiar with those challenges and process inefficiencies you face as an organization. Reach out to us to collaboratively design a solution that precisely fits your needs. As your needs inevitably change over time, we stay with you along the way to make adjustments and/or build new functionality as the need arises. As many of our clients can attest to, we have become one of their favorite partners for these very reasons (you can read testimonials from a handful of our clients on our Work+Results page). We are in it for the long-haul and our mission is to deliver solutions that are right for you, big or small, even as those needs evolve.
It really is that simple. Continuous improvement with Trident as your partner. Let us show you how Trident can simplify your workload using our best-of-breed technology that can be fully integrated into the systems and processes you already use.
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