Provides information about the UW Connect Continual Improvement Management modules, including Lessons Learned and Improvement Initiatives.
UW-IT service, practice, and project teams using UW Connect to record continual improvement-related activities
This article contains the following sections:
The Continual Improvement application houses two repositories that are key to Continual Improvement Management (CIM): Lessons Learned and Improvement Initiatives. Generally speaking, the purpose of such registers is to have a central tracking mechanism that 1) allows related efforts to be managed throughout their lifecycle and 2) increases transparency and coordination across the organization. Both records can result from or spawn other activities and record types, e.g.:
The Continual Improvement records are available to UW-IT teams and staff, and can be used as best meets their needs.
At this time, our main focus is in providing central repositories with a "low barrier to entry," and are not dictating whether and how the records are used. Any record enhancements, standardized processes, and/or centralized ownership would be based on actual usage and be driven by UW-IT stakeholder requests. We welcome your input! You can let the CIM practice team know by filling out this form or sending a note to help@uw.edu with "Continual Improvement" in the subject line.
UW-IT is increasingly looking to capture, share, and review lessons learned across our organization, and there has not been a central repository for this type of information. Our Lessons Learned record type is a custom solution, but the fields align with the industry's commonly-used data points for such repositories. In addition to the Short Description and Assignment Group, the only required fields are Type (Best Practice, Needs Improvement) and Challenge/Opportunity. We encourage you to provide additional detail, however, such as:
There are also Related Lists tabs, so you can link to records such as Problems, Incidents, Projects, and Changes. Note that this is currently a "one-way" relationship and the Lessons Learned record is not associated on the Change, Incident., etc. This could be a future feature request, should users request it.
Currently, UW-IT uses Problem records with a Continual Service Improvement (CSI) designation to capture improvement initiatives.
KEY STEP: From within a Problem record, you must tick the CSI checkbox to designate it as an improvement initiative. If you do not, the record will be considered part of the Problem Management purview, and will not be reflected in the Improvement Initiatives module. Standard Problem fields are still relevant (e.g., Short Description, Description). You can use the fields on the CSI tab to track more CIM-related specifics. Collectively, the Problem/CSI fields support tracking of key components of improvement initiatives, e.g.:
*ServiceNow does have a standalone Improvement Initiative record type (with similar fields), and we will look to roll that out at a future date, migrating the Problem records to that solution. Our use of Problem records pre-dates the ServiceNow solution.
There is a Continual Improvement Management dashboard, with tabs for the two record types.
When working with reports and list views, do note that because Service Offering and Type are both multi-select fields, you will not be able to group by/sort by in a list view. You can, however, use the fields as a filter.