Continual Improvement (Practice)
Definition
"The practice of aligning the organization's practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing improvement of products, services, practices, or any element involved in the management of products and services."
To fulfil the purpose, an organization needs to:
- Establish and maintain an effective approach to continual improvement
- Ensure effective and efficient improvement across the organization
Practice vs model: ITIL v5 describes both a continual improvement practice (how the organization manages improvements day-to-day) and a continual improvement model (the seven-step framework for any improvement initiative). This page covers the practice.
Key Terms
Improvement: "a deliberately introduced change that results in increased value for one or more stakeholders."
Improvement register (CIR): "a database or structured document used to record and manage improvement initiatives throughout their lifecycles."
Processes
Managing a Common Approach to Continual Improvement
Establishes how the organization approaches improvement at a systemic level:
- Analyse the organization's requirements, culture, strategy, and stakeholders: Understand the context in which improvement will operate.
- Identify relevant and valuable models and methods: Select improvement approaches (Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, PDCA) suited to the organization.
- Define and agree the continual improvement approach: Document the agreed methodology, governance, and decision-making framework.
- Communicate and integrate the continual improvement approach: Embed the approach across the organization, train practitioners, and integrate with value streams.
- Review the continual improvement approach: Periodically assess whether the approach itself needs to be improved.
Managing Continual Improvement Initiatives
Handles individual improvement initiatives from idea to completion:
- Identify and log improvement opportunities: Capture ideas from any source (incident reviews, service reviews, user feedback, monitoring data) into the improvement register.
- Assess, prioritize, and approve improvement initiatives: Evaluate business value, cost, risk, and effort; prioritize against other initiatives.
- Plan improvement initiatives: Define scope, resources, timeline, and expected outcomes.
- Facilitate the implementation of improvement initiatives: Coordinate execution, remove blockers, and manage dependencies.
- Measure and evaluate the results of improvement initiatives: Compare actual outcomes against expected outcomes; document lessons learned.
The Improvement Register (CIR)
The continual improvement register is the central tracking tool:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Content | All logged improvement ideas, proposals, and active initiatives |
| Status tracking | From idea through assessment, approval, implementation, to closure |
| Priority | Business value ranking to guide resource allocation |
| Ownership | Each initiative has an assigned owner responsible for progress |
| Outcomes | Expected and actual results documented for each initiative |
Common mistake: empty CIRs. Many organizations create an improvement register but fail to populate it regularly. The CIR should be a living document, updated during every service review, incident review, and problem investigation. If your CIR has fewer entries than your incident backlog, improvement is likely not receiving enough attention.
Recommendations for Practice Success
- Foster and embed a continual improvement culture: improvement is everyone's responsibility, not just a dedicated team
- Leverage data-driven decision-making and automation tools to identify and prioritize opportunities
- Set clear goals and prioritize initiatives by business value
- Plan to realize value from each initiative (not just complete the work)
- Encourage cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders from different practices and teams
- Regularly review initiatives: close completed ones, reprioritize active ones, archive abandoned ones
Key Metrics
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Satisfaction with value from improvement initiatives | Perceived benefit by stakeholders |
| Awareness and adoption of continual improvement culture | How embedded improvement thinking is |
| Economic value metrics (ROI, NPV) and value on investment | Financial return of improvement efforts |
| Successful improvement initiatives (%) | Completion rate |
| Initiatives delivered on time, within cost, as planned | Execution quality |
| Initiatives where risks/outcomes outweighed benefits | Failed or counterproductive improvements |
| Continual improvement productivity index | Overall efficiency of the improvement engine |
Key Roles
- Continual improvement manager: Coordinates the improvement approach, maintains the CIR, facilitates prioritization, and reports on improvement outcomes
Software Tools
- Workflow management and collaboration tools
- Analysis and reporting tools
- Work planning and prioritization tools
- Knowledge management tools
- Survey tools