Professional Services Management - a note on problems with continuous improvement

This post is really a note to myself.

I have always been a supporter of continuous improvement as a management approach. Recently I have begun to have doubts about its application in practice.

Take a reliable part time professional who is yielding a good profit to the firm. He/she may be balancing work and family responsibilities. Now increase the pressure to try to improve results. This will often result in an immediate increase in billings. However, this may in fact be just a short term result.

If the person is already in a personal balance position, just balancing work with other commitments, immediate tension is created. This may lead to subsequent declines in performance and even the loss of a profitable professional. 

In theory, continuous improvement starts be recognising the constraints faced by individual workers. In practice, these issues are often ignored.