Avoid the most common pitfalls
Tips for a successful Assessment
14. USE expert help as required to ensure that the improvement plans are successful
With the assessment completed, an initial improvement plan developed, and a groundswell of support for this work, it's easy to believe that the next steps will be relatively easy. Certainly the improvement journey is off to a great start, but this is only the beginning: there's still a lot that can go wrong.
The biggest challenge is that the organization is usually, almost by definition, venturing into some areas that it does not understand well. Some components of the improvement plan may be relatively straightforward, but others may be well beyond the current capabilities of people within the organization. The teams assigned to such tasks will need some help.
The aim is to have all of the improvement plans succeed, without false starts or detours. So if there is any doubt at all about whether an improvement team has the knowledge and skills to complete their assigned task, they should be given help. Perhaps some research and self-directed study will be sufficient.Perhaps formal classroom training may be required. In some cases none of this will be sufficient: the task may be so complex that they will need an experienced coach to guide them to success.
Further reading
This
article just touches on some of the key issues.
For lots more information on how to conduct an assessment effectively, see
"From Baldrige
to the Bottom Line".