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As needs and demands change, some processes can lose their sheen, making getting work done more difficult for everyone.
Can this be avoided? Sure, but only if you can convince everyone that a change is needed.
This is where process improvement methodologies can be helpful; handy frameworks you can use to find areas of improvement and get everyone involved in making change happen.
If you’re looking to freshen-up tired workflows, planning around a proven structure can be a big help, but where to start? Here, in our 2025 guide to process improvement methodologies.
Process improvement methodologies are frameworks you can use to review current ways of working and highlight areas of improvement.
In short, they allow you to step back and look at business processes impartially, helping you see what works, what doesn’t and what could realistically be done to make things better.
Taking a structured approach to change can make adopting new practices much easier, which is why many businesses choose to follow process improvement methodologies.
By understanding how different process improvement techniques work, you’ll be free to make adjustments and create unique strategies to change your own processes effectively.
Let’s start with the basics, no matter which route you take, you’ll likely have similar goals.
Most process improvement strategies set out to:
Whether you’re focused on a single process or a complex network of tasks, you’ll be working towards one or more of these goals, with a lot of help from your employees, of course.
Process improvement is measured by monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to the task at hand.
Let’s say you’re a manufacturer and you want to produce more products in a shorter timeframe. In this case, you can gauge how successful a new process is by looking for improvement in KPIs like cycle time, downtime and capacity utilisation.
This is one of the main benefits of following a structured process improvement plan. Instead of making changes blindly, teams can plan, test, and measure improvements together, then use real data to see what works best.
It’s not uncommon for people to confuse process improvement with business process management, after all, both practices are closely related.
In simple terms, process improvement looks at ways to improve how a specific task is done, while business process management looks at relationships between all business processes.
When you make efforts to improve one task, you’ll usually see benefits across wider aspects of your business operations, so both practices do share some overlap.
The important thing to note is that small, well-planned changes made to a specific process can quickly lead to significant, business-wide improvements, provided everyone is engaged.
While continuous improvement initiatives help all types of organisations, changing processes for no reason isn't usually the best idea.
Business process improvement is all about evaluating the way tasks are performed and seeing whether new processes might make things easier for employees and customers.
So, a key component of process improvement is deciding whether a change is necessary.
Ultimately, your business works best when your employees are happy, engaged and feel supported in their ability to get work done. This is why the first step in any change process should be to collect employee feedback and to use their ideas as a basis for improvement.
Deciding to make a change without following this step often only makes life harder for your employees, in turn hurting efficiencies and productivity leading to worse customer outcomes.
This idea is backed by Capterra’s 2022 Change Fatigue in the Workplace Survey:
On the other hand, when you use a platform like Sideways 6 to collect employee ideas and engage your teams in planning and implementing change, the process can be very positive:
The people performing processes daily will usually know when change is needed, and they’ll often have some good ideas about how to make improvements. So, giving employees a way to share insightful feedback and ideas can be a great way to find opportunities for change.
Other things to try include:
You might notice a common theme here, communication.
By giving employees accessible avenues to report inefficiencies and suggest improvements, it becomes much easier to focus resources on changes that will actually improve operations.
It’s this exact principle that our tailor-made idea management solutions are built around.
Now we’ve covered the basics, we're ready to discuss the specific process improvement frameworks you can use to implement and engage employees in effective change initiatives.
Below are 10 proven and popular process improvement methodologies commonly used by businesses of all sizes to plan, test and perform successful operational improvements.
The Six Sigma methodology lays out simple, repeatable steps professionals can follow to spot and address inconsistencies in business processes.
The main idea behind Six Sigma, first developed by Motorola in the 1980s, is that through careful data analysis process improvements can be broken down into 5 actionable stages.
This is known as the DMAIC process:
Thanks to their simplicity, Six Sigma and the DMAIC process can be adjusted to suit unique needs in just about any industry. Instead of complicating things with formulas and equations, Six Sigma simply offers a clear framework for working through improvements methodically.
Continuous process improvement, AKA the Kaizen model, does exactly what it says on the tin. This methodology asks you to make frequent, small adjustments to processes over time, placing your team in a better position to adapt to emerging issues and accept improvements.
Continuous improvement relies on open and consistent communication across all levels of your business. In a perfect model, any employee across any practice will be comfortable with and confident in their ability to spot an issue, think of a fix and share it with decision-makers.
Of course, this means you need a good communication system that supports fast, organised idea sharing. With such a system in place, it’s not uncommon to see improved engagement in transformations as more people see how much their ideas can benefit working conditions.
The idea of continuous improvement can be built on to create a few more specific process improvement methodologies, Total Quality Management (TQM) being a prime example.
Here, the focus is still on making frequent, small improvements to processes to stay ahead of emerging issues, only this time customer feedback is factored into the equation.
Open communication between employees and leaders is still the backbone of TQM, it’s just that once improvements are made, customer opinions become the ultimate judge of quality.
Once a change is made, leaders will use customer reviews, feedback and surveys to decide if the change should stick. TQM often works well alongside employee recognition and reward programs used to incentivise finding creative solutions to customer-facing issues.
The Theory of Constraints is a bit different to other process improvement methodologies, as its main goal is to fix issues quickly as they happen.
You’ll find this process improvement technique works best in fast-paced environments where stopping work for a while can cause more issues than it solves. Think manufacturing processes where shutting down one machine can cause bottlenecks all over the workplace.
If you spot an issue, you can follow a simple 5-step process to fix it:
If you’re looking for a process improvement methodology that’s easy to scale, PDCA is your best bet.
This interactive methodology is most-often used to improve quality control operations, giving teams a 4-step process to follow when making process improvements.
When an issue occurs, employees are asked to:
The main benefit of the PDCA model is that it can be equally-applied to issues of all scales.
Once people become familiar with the cycle, independent problem-solving becomes natural.
If you’ve ever been involved in manufacturing, you’ll have heard the phrase Just-in-Time.
This widely-used process improvement methodology helps businesses make efficient use of resources to reduce inventory costs and save time.
Sometimes referred to as the Toyota Production System, the basic idea is to only store resources you need right now on-site to make better use of limited space and available time.
When done well, Just-in-Time models can help you whittle down a process to its most efficient form, but only with careful planning. You need to be confident that you have enough resources to cover expected sales and changes in demand to make sure you’re not caught without stock when you need it.
Process mapping is a great process improvement technique for visual learners.
When you notice an inefficiency, instead of documenting causes and solutions in writing, process mapping teaches you to represent issues visually using flowcharts and diagrams.
The main benefit here is that anybody of any skill level can access and understand process maps equally, helping you to engage more employees in process improvements.
The other benefit is that to break problems down into condensed visual maps, you’ll need to really think about which bits of information are key, helping you to ignore data that isn’t really useful.
Value stream mapping builds on process mapping to factor customer value into decisions.
In a value stream map, each step in a process is visualised in a flowchart or diagram, then evaluated based on how much value it brings to the customer.
Breaking things down this way helps you to focus on improving steps that actually bring value to your business and avoid spending too much time on those that aren’t that impactful.
This form of process improvement can also help you remove unnecessary steps to keep production costs and resource waste down without harming customer experience.
SIPOC analysis is a quick and accessible process improvement methodology that gives leaders great insight into internal supply chains.
By creating a SIPOC diagram, you get to see a high-level overview of your business’ internal processes that can help you spot areas of inefficiency.
Every step in your supply chain can be filtered into one of five categories:
Once you’ve organised processes into these categories, you can see which are providing value and which might be taking up too many resources.
You can then make sure you’re only making changes to processes that actually need them.
If you like the idea of SIPOC analysis, but don’t have any supply chains to improve, the people, process, technology framework is a good alternative.
Under this process improvement methodology, leaders are asked to view tasks through three lenses:
People, process, technology process improvement methodologies are great for simplifying large-scale transformations.
During the planning phase, leaders can map out how changes might affect different people and processes, then make sure everyone involved has access to required resources.
For this to work well, employees must be able to share information with leaders to let them know what level of support they need, so good communication and idea management is key.
Using tried-and-tested process improvement methodologies to implement and engage people in change can bring about some big benefits, including:
When you improve business processes, it usually means you use fewer resources and waste less time. When people see these actions help them get more work done much faster, they’ll often become more open to change and engaged in planning process improvements.
All process improvement methodologies rely on employee involvement, allowing your people to have a say in how things are done. Research shows that when process improvements are built around employee ideas, business-wide engagement levels can rise by as much as 40%.
Continuously improving business processes not only benefits employees, it also leads to better-quality products and services. When you take a methodical approach to process improvement, you’ll find it much easier to make changes that benefit your unique audience,
The more comfortable employees are following process improvement methodologies, the more often they’ll apply them to everyday tasks. This can help you foster a culture of continuous improvement that makes scaling operations in the future much easier.
When you find a business process improvement methodology that works for you and your team, you’ll find people become much more engaged in change. However, running effective programs does require a lot of careful planning. Below are some best practices to consider.
For process improvement projects to be successful, you’ll need to secure buy-in from people across all levels of your organisation.
To convince executives to provide required resources, and to engage employees in making change happen, structured plans outlining costs and timeframes are essential. It’s also wise to promote open communication between all parties to get everybody on the same page.
Even seemingly small changes can impact the way multiple departments function, so it's important to promote collaboration between teams.
Making it easy for diverse teams to share ideas quickly helps you to fix problems as soon as they occur and identify great solutions efficiently, keeping everyone motivated and engaged.
Efforts to improve processes can quickly become overwhelming if projects aren't broken down into manageable tasks.
A great way to do this is to create achievable goals built around the SMART framework:
Time-Bound: A realistic timeframe for the task to help employees manage their workloads.
No matter how well a process improvement project is planned, unforeseen issues can always pop up.
Building continuous improvement operations around a framework of open communication makes it much easier to adjust plans when this happens. When employees have a quick and easy way to share updates, those involved in process improvements can put them into action more efficiently.
No matter which type of process improvement method you follow, regular check-ins and progress reports help all stakeholders remain on track.
Note everything down, listen to employee feedback and always be open to discussions about improvements.
Even if insights aren't immediately helpful, they might become useful later, or at the very least help you gauge how time-consuming or resource-intensive future initiatives may be.
Communication is key to the success of any process improvement initiative, so it's important to provide all employees a quick and easy way to share impactful ideas.
Sideways 6 integrates into the communication tools you already use to engage employees where they're most comfortable. Empower your teams to share updates, ideas and creative solutions in real-time to help ensure change initiatives remain agile and on-track.
No matter the type of process improvement methodology you follow, it's your hard-working employees that will ensure its success.
Help your teams feel heard and engaged in process improvements with an idea management solution built for you. Try out our product with a free demo today.
