Continuous improvement, or CI in shorthand, is a management approach that gained currency in the 1980s and 1990s.  With a CI culture, nobody in the organization ever thinks, "OK, now that we've achieved this year's cost targets, let's just run things steadily for a bit, no more changes."  A CI culture implies there's always a next idea or a next step, however small.  And it says that if you're not moving a little bit further forward in some way, there's a danger you'll start slipping back - if not in absolute terms, then relative to your competitors.  You have to be paranoid about complacency.  

And with a CI culture, nobody ever thinks, "OK, there's more to do, but I'll wait a few months and assemble a good, long, meaty to-do list, then I'll really go for it, I'll make a sprint for the tape."  A CI culture says do even a little bit today, don't wait for a major event, a big process - if you do, there's a risk it won't happen, it could become too monumental and hard to handle.

- Andrew Wileman, Driving Down Cost

The concept of making continuous improvements is a powerful one.  In these tips, we talk a lot about avoiding procrastination (such as here and here) because it is such an ingrained part of all of us as humans.  CI dovetails completely with avoiding procrastination: as Andrew Wileman says, we often decide to wait to make changes until something else happens.  But so often, the "something else" never comes.  We never have the extra time/cash/manpower we dream of.  Waiting for a more optimal time is also frequently just a veiled procrastination attempt.  To cut through this, build your culture (both in yourself and in your company) of CI: what can you be doing now, even if it's small, to push ahead?  How can you break your goals down into easy-to-accomplish chunks that you can spread out and accomplish more readily?

Quality assurance evaluations and ongoing training are great ways to push yourself and your team towards a culture of CI.  ProSolutions can help you with that: