Eye on the Prize

I recently had a meeting with my boss on my yearly incentive goals. We had agreed on them in April and my bonus is contingent on completing the task. Honestly, I had forgotten them so I was amazed at my last incentive goal quarterly meeting how little I had accomplished. Somehow, I needed to get these goals in the forefront of my attention so I can complete them...which led me to today's Kaizen:

Here's my desk. I decided that I needed to put these goals where I could see them everyday so they will not slip my mind. A number of options came to mind like the wall behind my monitor, my side wall, a post it note, and so on. So, here's my desk before:

















Since I want to keep these goals on the "forefront of my mind", I decided to tape them in front of my keyboard as in the picture below:
















This little change will help me keep focused on these objectives that I need to complete by the end of the year. In addition, I can keep notes on it on how I am progressing very easily. So, here's some benefits of this little by little change:

• Goals are easy to read
• Goals are easy to update and note progress
• No time spent searching for the paperwork
• I'll see the goals everyday

Problems and failures like this lead to the best improvements. When you can use a kaizen to resolve small matters such as this, you feel like you did something right at work.

Dan Lafever
Kaizeneer