Define drivers for improvement

Defining Drivers for Improvement to Evaluate and Prioritize Opportunities
Identifying and understanding drivers for improvement are essential for evaluating and prioritizing opportunities to enhance your operations, workloads, and overall business performance. Drivers for improvement help determine where to focus resources and effort, ensuring that changes contribute meaningfully to organizational goals. Clearly defining these drivers also helps align teams on what matters most, providing a framework for consistent and strategic decision-making.

Identify Key Drivers for Improvement

Identify key drivers that influence the need for improvement. Drivers can vary across organizations but typically include the following:

• Customer Experience: Improving the experience of customers is often the highest priority. Drivers may include reducing latency, improving service availability, or responding to customer feedback.
• Operational Efficiency: Enhancing efficiency by reducing manual effort, streamlining workflows, or automating repetitive tasks can lead to faster and more reliable outcomes while freeing up resources for higher-value work.
• Risk Reduction: Reducing risks such as security vulnerabilities, single points of failure, or potential compliance issues is a critical driver. Improvements that mitigate risks help protect the business, customers, and brand reputation.
• Cost Optimization: Reducing costs by optimizing resources, managing infrastructure more effectively, or eliminating waste can make operations more financially sustainable. Improvements that directly reduce expenses should be evaluated carefully for their potential return on investment.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Drivers for improvement may include the ability to scale to meet future demand or adjust systems to accommodate changes in workload. Improvements that support scalability enable organizations to grow without compromising service quality.
• Employee Productivity and Satisfaction: Improvements that increase team productivity and reduce frustration by simplifying tasks, reducing unnecessary work, or providing better tools can lead to more engaged and effective teams.
• Compliance and Governance: Meeting regulatory requirements or internal governance policies is a key driver for many improvements, ensuring that systems are in line with compliance standards to avoid penalties and maintain customer trust.

Evaluate Opportunities Based on Drivers

Evaluate each improvement opportunity by determining which key drivers it addresses and the level of impact it will have:

• Map Opportunities to Drivers: For each potential improvement, identify the driver(s) it impacts. For example, an automation initiative may address both operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.
• Assess Impact and Feasibility: Determine the potential impact of each opportunity on the identified driver and assess the feasibility of implementing the improvement. High-impact, feasible opportunities that align with critical drivers should be prioritized.

Prioritize Based on Business Impact

Use the business impact of each driver to prioritize opportunities. Assign a value to each driver based on the organizational goals and assess how well an improvement supports these drivers:

• High Business Impact: Improvements that address high-priority drivers, such as reducing customer impact during incidents or enhancing security, should be prioritized.
• Short-term vs Long-term Gains: Consider whether the opportunity provides immediate gains or long-term strategic benefits. Improvements that align with high-priority drivers and deliver measurable value quickly should receive higher priority.
• Resource Allocation: Determine whether the resources available can support an opportunity. If a high-impact improvement requires significant resources, it may need to be broken down into smaller, achievable steps.

Regularly Review and Update Drivers

Regularly review drivers for improvement to ensure they remain aligned with changing organizational goals and market conditions. Drivers can evolve over time as business priorities shift, new technologies become available, or customer needs change. Keeping drivers up to date helps ensure that improvement efforts continue to provide meaningful value to the organization.

Supporting Questions

• What key drivers are considered when identifying opportunities for improvement?
• How are potential improvements evaluated and prioritized based on their impact on key drivers?
• How often are drivers reviewed to ensure they align with current business objectives?

Roles and Responsibilities

Operations Manager
Responsibilities:

• Define and regularly review key drivers for improvement to ensure they align with the organization’s goals.
• Lead the evaluation and prioritization of improvement opportunities based on how they support the identified drivers.

Business Analyst
Responsibilities:

• Analyze and quantify the impact of improvement opportunities in relation to key drivers, such as customer experience, risk reduction, and cost optimization.
• Provide insights and recommendations to prioritize improvements that align with high-value drivers.

Team Lead
Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with the operations manager and business analyst to assess the feasibility of implementing prioritized improvements.
• Ensure that the team is focused on delivering improvements that align with identified drivers and provide value to the organization.

Artifacts

• Improvement Opportunity Evaluation Matrix: A matrix that maps potential improvements to key drivers, helping evaluate and prioritize opportunities based on their alignment and impact.
• Driver Impact Assessment Document: A document detailing the impact each key driver has on business objectives, including the metrics used to evaluate progress.
• Improvement Prioritization Backlog: A backlog of prioritized improvements based on the alignment of opportunities with key drivers, along with estimated impact and feasibility assessments.

Relevant AWS Tools

Tracking and Evaluation Tools

• AWS Well-Architected Tool: Provides insights into opportunities for improvement by evaluating workloads against best practices, helping identify drivers such as risk reduction and operational efficiency.
• AWS Trusted Advisor: Recommends optimizations based on best practices, providing input for cost reduction, performance improvement, and risk mitigation—common drivers for improvement.

Cost and Efficiency Tools

• AWS Cost Explorer: Provides insights into cost optimization opportunities, helping evaluate improvements that address the cost reduction driver.
• AWS Systems Manager OpsCenter: Aggregates operational data, helping identify inefficiencies, risks, or areas that need improvement.

Monitoring Tools

• Amazon CloudWatch: Collects metrics that can be used to assess the impact of different drivers, such as operational efficiency or scalability, and helps identify areas for improvement.
• AWS QuickSight: Visualizes key performance metrics that align with drivers such as customer experience, operational efficiency, and risk reduction, helping prioritize improvement opportunities.