Plan. Do. Check. Act.
Repeat.
Is it as simple as that?
Well. Yes.
I mean, why not? Keeping it simple is an art, and continuous improvement doesn’t have to be much harder than this.
This is called the PDCA-cycle and it is useful for many a person, organization and business. Having been around for approximately 60 years, it’s been tried and tested many a time.
A newer way to phrase it, that I find fairly similar, is in the format of the Design Thinking Process:
Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test.
It is possible to make it even simpler though, getting it down to three steps:
Plan. Do. Evaluate.
Repeat.
Try to keep short cycle times, iterating over and over again, learning as you go along. Trying to work things out in advance, without interacting with the people you are trying to engage, you run the risk of creating something nobody is interested in. Plan – do – evaluate, and iterate, over and over again, tweaking and refining as you go along. Combine it with deep practice, and you’ve really got one serious learning curve to look forward to!