Practical Process Improvement (PPI)
Practical Process Improvement (PPI) is simple, practical and involves everyone in the organisation. In fact, so simple that you can implement it yourself with little or no external support.
Employees are formed into teams to solve important problems for the organisation using the PPI 8-Step Method. Everyone will require training initially and the training projects are run over an intensive 5 days (full time) or spread over 6-14 weeks. Thereafter projects can be completed in a few days or even a few hours.
PPI has the power to transform your organisation using your current internal resources. Youwill be able to run with the programme very quickly, and achieve dramatic results almost immediately. The short video explains the different types of PPI training.
This is how PPI works...
- Picking the Priority Projects - Leadership are usually best placed to select the problems to be solved, ideally by looking at gaps in the metrics
- Form Employees into a Project Team - the ideal team is 5-7 people plus a facilitator. These people should work in the process being worked on
- Team Solves the Problem - the team use the 8-Step Method to solve the problem. They will need training initially, but this is very simple and can be done by exisiting staff
- Implement the Solutions - the manager who owns the process being worked on is responsible for ensuring that the team's solutions are implemented and that the project continues to be tracked
The Practical Process Improvement program was developed by Ed Zunich and represents a synthesis of all the best quality ideas presented in a simple, structured way that is accessible to everyone. It is a team based problem solving method and has been used by commercial, government and charitable organisations in 24 countries around the world.
Here is a link to Ed Zunich's website
www.ppiresults.com
The PPI System
PPI is designed as a programme that you can implement yourself with little or no external support. Therefore, there is a complete set of materials that make up the PPI System including...
- Training workbooks for Leadership, Facilitators & Project Teams
- Training Guides for the trainers/coaches/facilitators leading the training
- Training slides for all the training events
- Templates, agendas, charts, suggested videos etc.
All of the PPI System materials can be customised with your organisations logos, colours, forewords, photos etc. This encourages faster adoption and ownership of the programme.
There are 2 scheduling options for the project team training, either spread out over 6 to 14 weeks (PPI 8020) or concentrated within 5 days (PPI-5) - the choice is yours.
APEx Report Out - example from Aston University
An example of a Practical Process Improvement (PPI) Report Out; this one is from Aston University, who rebranded the programme as Aston process Excellence (APEx).
The Report Out is a key milestone, where the team(s) give a progress update to leadership. It is not the end of the project. The format is a short introduction (for those unfamiliar with PPI), a 20 minute presentation by the project spokesperson, followed by questions and answers.
This video shows the introduction and concluding remarks by Dr Mike Bell, who taught and coached this particualr project. It does not contain any details of the project (for confidentiality reasons).
“Don't equate activity with efficiency” Harvey Mackay
