Did You Just Take Over My Idea?

💡 Keeping Ownership of Continuous Improvement 💡

Earlier in my career, I was asked to lead the design and operation of a new manufacturing value stream. The improvements in material, information, and people flow made it dramatically better than the legacy processes—reducing waste while making even more opportunities for improvement visible.

🔹 A Team-Driven Improvement System

The 36 team members quickly embraced the new improvement board, generating a flood of ideas. They placed idea cards on the board at an incredible pace. My two supervisors and I worked to support implementation as fast as possible, giving team members time to experiment and execute their ideas while pulling in maintenance support when needed.

📌 The impact? 

Within a few weeks, over 200 ideas were implemented, with just as many in the queue, waiting for capacity!

🔹 The Unintended Consequence of Digitalizing the Board

The engineer in me thought we could improve visibility and efficiency by replacing the handwritten cards with a spreadsheet. Big mistake.

🚨 What happened?

• The team’s ownership of the ideas disappeared—it felt like their ideas had been transferred from their hands to my computer.

• The emotional attachment to driving improvement was lost.

• Momentum slowed, and frustration grew—management was now expected to "own" the improvements.

🔹 Restoring the System with Visual Management & Pull

We quickly recognized our mistake and took action:

✅ Removed the Excel spreadsheet and restored the physical board.

✅ Set limits on how many ideas could be in the “To Do” and “Doing” columns.

✅ Created a pull system, ensuring that ideas moved from “Done” to “Doing” and then to “To Do” at a sustainable pace.

Once we re-established ownership and flow, the improvement system came back to life!

💭 Key Takeaway:

Technology is not always the solution—especially when it disrupts team ownership and engagement. Keeping improvement visual, tactile, and team-driven is often the best way to sustain momentum.

❓ Have you ever seen technology unintentionally disrupt an improvement system? How did you recover? 

Let’s discuss this in the comments! 🚀