20.5Tools and techniques for productivity improvement

It is very important for a productivity consultant to be aware of productivity techniques and tools. In deciding on productivity techniques, managers and consultants need to understand:

●how comfortable the improvement team will be with the technique in the tasks it is supposed to deal with;

●how well the team understands the technique’s language;

●how much the team knows about using the techniques or how rapidly it can be trained.

If managers and consultants understand the purpose, language and relations among various improvement techniques, using them will be easier. They will be able to combine them in complementary rather than competitive ways. The following should be taken into account in selecting the productivity improvement techniques:

●The needs of the process customer (internal or external) in identifying the method.

●The technique should be as simple as possible for the task.

●Everybody must understand it; and everybody affected by it must have the opportunity to contribute to its development and implementation.

●It must empower people to perform better and have a motivating and not a punitive character; it must be non-manipulative, honest and unambiguous.