Managing Slowdown in Improvement Projects

Unaware of the consequences, busy managers and senior engineers often behave in ways that hamper progress in improvement projects. Change agents easily become frustrated when key colleagues are late to meetings, delay responding to requests for information, or don't make decisions as required. However, rather than accepting the slowdown such behavior causes, change agents should analyze and address the challenges it signals. Based on experiences in nine process improvement projects at Ericsson, the authors suggest how change agents can analyze slowdown behavior, respond by increasing the commitment and effort of key colleagues, and reinforce progress and results in improvement projects. © 2008 IEEE.