Last week, I attended a Green Symposium in which a colleague of mine (Claire Wooley, Howard Ecker) mentioned a concept that I have not thought about for some time: Kaizen.
According to Wikipedia, Kaizen (“improvement”) is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities continually improve all functions of a business, from the CEO to the staff. By improving standardized activities and processes, Kaizen aims to eliminate waste (similar to lean design/lean manufacturing).
Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested…The English usage of “kaizen” can also be: “continuous improvement”.
The Kaizen approach translates to architects/engineers/construction and other service providers. Years ago, when I worked in-house at various (large and small) AE firms, I often encountered situations where we’d have a great business development idea, but execution was a long and grueling process. If the effort didn’t move along at a decent clip, then the idea was at risk of fizzling, or becoming so watered-down that the end result bore few of the expected returns.
In conversation with an industry friend today (Director of Business Development within a large, 10-office AEI firm), she echoed my own experience in working for–and serving as a consultant to—firms in the built environment industry. No matter how seasoned the AEC professional (even firm owners have trouble executing big marketing/BD ideas, sometimes), our typical AEC culture is to move slower than we’d like and expect.
So what gives? Why does execution fall short? Perhaps we can attribute the (sometimes) sloth-like execution process to the fact that the very nature of the work we do is collaborative. We collaborate with our clients during the design; it’s an iterative process, as my industry friend put it.
How might AEC firms apply the Kaizen methodology to improve their ability to execute in-house projects that will directly affect the firm’s bottom line, such as marketing/business development activities? Stay tuned for Part II, as I will point out a few areas where you could make improvements (Kaizen) for better execution that is more satisfying and reaps higher results.
Between now and then, feel free to shoot me an email if you’d like to share anecdotes on how your own firm has improved its ability to better execute marketing/BD efforts in a timely, successful fashion.
