Leadership Nudge® 369 – How Continuous Improvement Works admin December 15, 2021

Leadership Nudge® 369 – How Continuous Improvement Works

Continuous improvement is a balance between ‘thinking’ and ‘doing.’ Watch David explain.


I’m here in Tahiti and the shape of this bridge represents how we think about what some people call “continuous improvement,” or the balance between thinking and doing.  

The flat treads represent the action moving forward. The vertical risers represent the pause / think. In Agile, it would be the sprint, and then the retrospective and sprint planning, and then the next sprint.  

And the shape of the bridge is that the risers are taller and the flat parts are shorter at the beginning of the project then at the end, as we reach the top of the bridge. At this point, more and more decision space is squeezed out of the project, and we just want to then shift our bias towards doing. At the end of the project the bias is on thinking. At end of the project, the bias shifts gradually from thinking toward doing. That’s what continuous improvement looks like.