Plenty of businesses hold a monthly meeting. The numbers get read out, everyone nods, and next month the same problems come back. A review is only worth the time if something changes because of it.
Keep it to three questions
- What happened? The few numbers that matter, against the targets you set.
- Why? For anything off target, the cause, not just the symptom.
- What will we change? One or two fixes, each with an owner and a date.
Fix causes, not symptoms
If deliveries were late, chasing the driver fixes this month. Finding out that orders reach the store a day late, and changing how they are passed on, fixes every month after. Keep asking why until you reach something you can change in the way the work is done.
Close the loop
Start each review by checking last month's fixes. Did they happen? Did they work? If they worked, write them into the procedure so they stick. If they didn't, try something else.
Small fixes, made every month and written down, compound.
That is continuous improvement in practice. Not a slogan or a programme, just a habit kept every month: check last month's fixes, find this month's cause, change one thing.