Repeating a task multiple times helps to hone your skill and become better at it. The cumulative effects grow exponentially. A daily improvement of 2% compounds to an 81% impact after 30 days. The concept of iteration works well in business as well.
Let’s take a look at how your business could leverage iterations to build competencies.
Continuous operations improvement
Introduced in the 1950s by Edward Demming, continuous improvement has been widely adopted and adapted over the years to improve processes and quality control.
The plan-do-act-check cycle, for instance, helps businesses tackle operational challenges. The conscious effort to validate changes implemented and quantify the effects make it difficult to ignore return on effort.
After all, an intentional improvement does not necessarily deliver the desired impact. By repeating the cycle of continuous improvement, your business faces reality squarely every time an iteration of improvement is complete.
Artificial intelligence (AI) modeling
To build an AI model, you need to develop the algorithm to solve a problem. Then, you train the model with pre-select data. Data quality affects the output. Poor data could lead to misconstrued output.
Upon reviewing the output, you might choose to test a different set of data before refining the model.
You likely need several iterations before you are satisfied with the results. Once you deploy the AI model, you continue to evaluate the output and refine the model.
In order to have an AI model that your team would trust and use for decision-making, iterations of testing and model refinement are necessary. The fine-tuning not only improves the output, you raise user’s confidence and adoption. Ultimately, your team embraces AI and the business benefits from productivity and bottom-line improvement.
Product innovation
Creation of new products involves investment in developing an idea into a revenue generating product. The process could take months.
To accelerate the process, successful businesses create a minimum viable product, get it out to a select group of customers and get their input. Then, they assess the input and make modifications to better meet customer needs and expectations.
This approach minimizes the risk of wasting months on product development and be surprised when the product launches. What your team considers appealing could flop without customer input. Iterations of product modifications and customer input gathering provide guidance on building a better product your customer wants.
An iterative approach helps to identify poor hypothesis and offer learnings you can act on. This process of validation helps your team with making assertive improvements. The business realizes better profit margin and develops an empowered workforce. As it is more effective to make bite size improvements and have them validated at each step, you increase the probability of success.
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