Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions

I learned many years ago from mentor and friend Aubrey Daniels that “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions”. This “gem” has achieved status in my Gem Hall of Fame and it is one of the cornerstones of the process for Accelerating Continuous Improvement.
 
From feedback to children to help them stop thumb sucking, to a scorecard for selling a million-dollar piece of medical equipment, to the odometer on my bicycle that encourages me to ride more miles --- those pursuing improvement thrive on feedback.  Not just feedback on results – not at all – feedback on progress – even tiny steps of progress.  In fact, the smaller the increment used to measure progress (and reinforce it), the faster performance will increase.   
 
Setting up effective feedback systems and scoreboards is always one of the most enjoyable parts of Accelerating Continuous Improvement workshops.  As teams design creative, fun, and powerful methods to “keep everyone informed of the progress” it literally takes performance to new levels.   
 
Here’s some of the key points that will be emphasized in this tutorial.

• If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

• Feedback is information about past performance that is timely enough and specific enough to facilitate improvement. During the game.  Not in the newspaper the next day.  Not from an accounting report 3 weeks later.

• Ideally feedback is incident/event based.  When the event occurs (machine stops, shipment is late, bill has an error, patient waits too long, run is scored) it is recorded on the log sheet/scoreboard real time.    

• The question is: “What’s on the ‘y’ axis?”

• The challenge is to “Make Performance Visible”.

• Use scoreboards to turn measurement/information into feedback.  

 
Don’t struggle with designing your feedback systems.  Take the time to let this tutorial help you put the principles and concepts of performance changing feedback into place now.  Remember – Feedback Is the Breakfast of Champions.