13 steps to a fail fast fail forward work culture

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results to those who need to know. Our secret recipe
unveiled for growth-focused companies like yours
FAIL FAST - FAIL FORWARD
INNOVATION TOOL KIT
What your consultants are not telling you

Did You Know?
F u n f a c t
In the 17th century, "innovators"
didn't get accolades, they got
their ears cut off
In fact, shouts of "Innovator!" used to be akin to charges of
heresy. As with any question of intellectual history, the path of
innovation through the centuries is complicated.

Did You Know?
F u n f a c t
Entrepreneurs break rules
If your company uses the term "challenge the status quo" and
"corporate intrapreneurialism" as a means to promote
innovation, be prepared to break the rules. In other words, if
you want to innovate, your company needs to induce a culture
that allows your rule breakers to feel at home.

13 STEPS
TO A
FAIL-FAST
FAIL-
FORWARD
WORK
CULTURE
W W W . T O P P T I . C O M
what your consultants may not
be telling you about innovation

If you would like to break
down corporate silos, the first
step is knowing how
everybody in the company
services your value chain. To
do so, start by building a
catalogue of business
processes for each function
(team) in your company and
make it accessible to
everybody. Document key
touchpoints, hand offs and
supporting documents to
ensure that all inputs and
outputs are visible
STEP 1. Catalogue and make
available ALL your business processes
ARE YOUR PROCESSES ACCESSIBLE?
Innovate, foster loyalty, perform
TOPP Tactical Intelligence

DOES YOUR STAFF IDENTIFY WASTE?
Give a mandate to your
process owners to make
incremental changes by
teaching the concepts of
waste management. Ensure
that every employee knows
the definition of each process
waste identified by your
Process Excellence/OpEx
Team and that it is the
responsibility of everybody
to continuously find waste in
their daily work and report it
to their team leaders
STEP 2. Teach waste management,
it's easy!

STEP 3. Capture and make visible
your portfolio of improvement ideas
"THE BEST WAY TO HAVE A
GOOD IDEA, IS TO HAVE A LOT
OF IDEAS" - LINUS PALDING
ARE IDEAS DISCUSSED OPENLY?
Embed a culture that teaches
each staff member that all
ideas are welcome and
whether acted upon or not,
play a fundamental role in
giving senior management
visibility into the level of
creativity that their leadership
style offers their organisation.
Create a monthly committee
that ensures that ideas are
continuously reviewed,
refreshed and re-evaluated.
Use visual dashboards for
maximum transparency Innovate, foster loyalty, perform

STEP 4. Differentiate ideas by
their impact on the company
Ideas which make the
company run better
Ideas which change the way
the company is run
'Just-do-it' ideas which are
quick and require only the
approval of a line manager
to implement
Group ideas by type and
ensure that each staff member
understands the difference of
each
We recommend 3 types:
1.
2.
3.
DO YOU EFFECTIVELY ENGAGE MANAGEMENT
WHEN PROMOTING INNOVATION?

STEP 5. Use a cost-benefit framework
when presenting opportunity
By using a simple grade scale
of low-medium-high, have
your team leads rank each idea
by classifying the level of
comittment (cost) needed to
execute on it.
Use the same scale to classify
potential benefits in the
following 4 categories; client
service, time saving, risk
reduction and competitive
advantage. By doing so, middle
management will have
increased confidence and
make quicker decisions to
sponsor their staff
ARE YOUR IDEAS EASILY SHORT-LISTED?

STEP 6. Pay senior management to
support continuous improvement
DO YOU LEAD BY EXAMPLE?
Continuous
improvement needs to
be supported from the
top down. If CI is not
included in each
leader's annual
performance goals, it
will be viewed as a
'nice-to-have and will be
the first thing to be
postponed in periods of
turbulence and high
client demand

STEP 7. Promote a culture of lessons
learnt and best practice sharing
DO YOU RETAIN KNOWLEDGE?
If your company learnt
something yesterday and
has forgotten it today, then
the 'Forgetting Curve' has
claimed another victim.
Celebrate success in real
time while capturing lessons
learnt, best practices and
hacks picked up along the
way in an easy-to-use
database. Disseminate
information regularly and
teach team leaders that it is
their responsibility to share
and retain know-how

STEP 8. Challenge your staff by
asking for the 'what', not the 'how'
DO YOU THINK OUT-OF-THE-BOX?
When seeking ideas by
posing a challenge to your
staff, in the initial stages,
keep your thoughts about
the solution out of the
equation by explaining
only the problem and
collect all incoming ideas
before sharing them
among the team

Give visibility to middle
management into how their
annual objectives support
the company's long-term,
break-through goals.
Create KPIs at the team
level that can be easily
associated with middle
management's annual
objectives and dedicate
time with each team leader
to help them understand
how they are supporting
their departmental annual
goals.
ARE YOUR GOALS MEASURABLE?
STEP 9. Use the strategy cascade to
make objectives measurable and
clear at all levels

STEP 10. Create a PMO which supports
tactical, non-confrontational decision
making
IS YOUR PMO EFFECTIVE?
Ensure that your Project
Management Office uses a
Project Charter with each
initiative so that all stake
holders have visibility into
the core principles,
dependencies and project
objectives and that each
has ample opportunity to
voice concerns in moments
of doubt. Embed the PDCA
logic in the way projects
are assigned and tracked

STEP 11. Leverage the Lean toolkit
without getting lost in Lean beuracracy
DOES LEAN WORK FOR YOU?
Lean methodologies and Six
Sigma are rich in
techniques that can
support staff members to
become better problem
solvers. The lean-savvy
teams in the company
should make their tool sets
readily available to the
organisation and be of
service for training in
moments where there is a
potential opportunity to
leverage them

IS EXCESSIVE RESISTENCE SLOWING
YOU DOWN?
STEP 12. Make 'nay saying' out
of fashion and squash the 'we
have always done it this way'
mentality out of existence

Meeting and e-mail fatigue are
killers to productivity and deep
learning. Offer your company
simple and relevant information
that can be located quickly to
transform learning into a daily
activity. Find the right set of
continuous improvement tools
to minimise time spent in
useless meetings,
administration, and offline data
capture (e.g. spreadsheets) and
invest in digital technology to
allow your team the opportunity
to collaborate in real time.
HAVE YOU AUTOMATED STANDARD
WORK & RE-OCCURRING TASKS?
STEP 13. Use enterprise software
to maximise collaboration

We recently implemented a
fail-fast, fail-forward CI
program at a 500-employee
health services agency in Ohio
Did You Know?
C A S E S T U D Y
Click here to visit our online archive to read about the Alvis
Case Study and other case study-testimonials of companies
with whom we have brought innovation and continuous
improvement enhanced awareness and automation

TOPPTI.COM INFO@TOPPTI.COM
We are a London-based software
company founded in 2015 specialised
in continuous improvement, strategy
deployment, quality assurance and
change management governance. We
have clients in the US, Europe, Africa,
the Middle East and Latin America
visit us at toppti.com
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13 steps to a fail fast fail forward work culture

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