Continuous improvement: Centralize your initiatives for dynamic management

In many organizations, there is a genuine desire to improve things. Operational excellence initiatives, progress plans, CSR roadmaps, and cross-functional actions are piling up… But when it comes to following up on them, those in charge find themselves alone, juggling scattered Excel spreadsheets, untracked emails, and manual follow-ups. This reality is even more striking in multi-site organizations.

When initiatives pile up without an overall vision, when monitoring gets lost in the maze of disparate tools, continuous improvement moves forward… but in the dark! In such a context, progress loses speed, efficiency, and strategic consistency. To gain global visibility, align priorities, and optimize management, the solution is clear: bring all your initiatives together in a single, collaborative space. This is the only way to ensure structured, real-time monitoring while strengthening collective commitment.

Why should you centralize your continuous improvement initiatives?

To better understand the concept of centralizing initiatives, let’s first look at why they often struggle to last over time.

The reasons why continuous improvement initiatives quickly run out of steam

Today, companies are stepping up their efforts to move forward: improvement plans, Lean initiatives, CSR projects, quality initiatives, innovations, etc. But the more initiatives there are, the more complex it becomes to monitor them. Even the most well-intentioned continuous improvement initiatives can lose momentum if they are not based on clear organization and appropriate tools.

Among the main causes of this stagnation are:

1. A lack of regular guidance: without effective management rituals, momentum weakens and teams become demotivated.
2. The absence of centralized management: each site, service, or department works independently, which increases duplication and makes coordination difficult.
3. Insufficient cross-functional visibility: strategic priorities get lost in the mass of local initiatives, which are sometimes unrelated to overall objective.

In this context, it becomes difficult to maintain a common course, identify obstacles, and promote successes. Continuous improvement does not falter due to a lack of will, but often due to a lack of tools and methods to support the effort over time.

Continuous improvement: the challenge of Excel’s multiple layers

Among the major causes of this slowdown, the tools used to monitor initiatives play a decisive role.

In many organizations, management still relies on a pile of Excel spreadsheets, shared files, and email exchanges. While these tools are practical for one-off needs, they quickly prove inadequate when it comes to managing a portfolio of initiatives across an entire company or multi-site network.

Their use inevitably leads to:

1. Fragmented monitoring by site or department: information is scattered and difficult to consolidate.
2. Manual updates: these take up valuable time and are often incomplete or obsolete.
3. Time-consuming steering committee meetings: preparation takes longer than analysis and decision-making
4. A gradual loss of meaning for teams: without an overall vision, efforts seem isolated and undervalued.

These tools simply prevent a reliable, real-time overview. Continuous improvement managers are then forced to “steer blind” and find themselves unable to provide visibility to their teams… simply because they don’t have it themselves!

And it is precisely this lack of visibility that makes it essential to set up a single collaborative space capable of centralizing information, providing an overview, and restoring momentum to continuous improvement.

The tangible benefits of a single collaborative space

Faced with the limitations of Excel and scattered tools, a centralized collaborative space becomes a real performance lever for continuous improvement.

By bringing all initiatives together in a single, accessible, and constantly updated environment, organizations radically transform the way they manage and monitor their actions.

The benefits are immediate:

• A 360° view of the entire portfolio, with real-time tracking of projects, their progress, and their results.
• A single source of truth: no more hunting for “the right version” of a file—everyone works on the same data.
• Enhanced coordination between sites, departments, and teams thanks to integrated communication and sharing tools.
• Simplified and proactive monitoring thanks to visual dashboards, key indicators, and automatic alerts in the event of blockages or approaching deadlines.
• Recognition of efforts with shared visibility on everyone’s successes and contributions, promoting engagement and recognition.

By centralizing information, the collaborative space puts an end to blind management, gives meaning to the actions taken, and allows decision-makers and field teams to work with a clear, shared, and results-oriented vision.

Implementing a structured and collaborative management approach

Moving from fragmented monitoring to structured, collaborative management is key to ensuring continuous improvement over time.

The goal is not only to bring initiatives together in one place, but also to establish a clear framework, common methods, and regular coordination to maintain team engagement and strategic consistency.

Structure the continuous improvement process

Effective management relies on a well-defined process shared by all stakeholders:

• Capture initiatives: centralize all ideas, projects, and proposed actions, whether they come from the field, management, or regulatory requirements.
• Evaluate and prioritize: analyze each initiative according to objective criteria (impact, feasibility, strategic alignment) to decide whether to launch it.
• Implement and monitor: assign responsibilities, monitor progress in real time, and adjust the plan if necessary.
• Close and capitalize: formalize results, share lessons learned, and promote successes.

This clear and shared cycle enables a shift from reactive reporting to proactive management, where each step is tracked and transparent.

For more information, see our article on how to structure a continuous improvement process.

Provide rhythm and visibility

A collaborative space is only valuable if it is regularly animated. To maintain energy and avoid running out of steam, it is essential to:

1. Plan rituals: monthly reviews, steering committees, short but frequent progress updates.
2. Use visual dashboards to display progress, performance indicators, and alerts.
3. Send automatic notifications to remind people of deadlines, report bottlenecks, or share successes.

This regular animation allows everyone to stay aligned, anticipate deviations, and recognize efforts.

Promoting collaboration and ownership

For governance to be truly collaborative, each stakeholder must be able to contribute easily, and the tool used must be perceived as an aid rather than a constraint, with:

• Clear roles and responsibilities: everyone knows what they have to do and when to intervene.
• Transparent information sharing: data is accessible at all levels of the organization, promoting trust and involvement.
• Recognition of contributions: highlight successes, celebrate victories, encourage participation.

By establishing a clear framework, setting the pace, and encouraging everyone to take ownership, structured and collaborative management becomes a powerful driver of continuous improvement.

On this topic, see our article on how to involve managers and teams in continuous improvement.

Examples and solutions to guide your actions

Among the existing tools, IDhall is a collaborative platform designed to centralize, structure, and track all continuous improvement initiatives within an organization, regardless of their origin or stage of progress.

In practice, this means:

• Having a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of all initiatives,
• Facilitating coordination between different sites, departments, or business lines,
• Reducing the time spent preparing reports and follow-ups,
• Highlighting efforts and successes through shared visibility.

For a concrete example of implementation, see our article on managing irritants.

This structured, collaborative framework enables organizations to become more efficient and transparent, while strengthening team engagement.

IDhall currently supports organizations that vary greatly in size and sector, but all share the same goal: to better monitor their initiatives, engage their teams, and achieve concrete results.

Here are some inspiring examples, grouped by sector.

IDhall in the industrial sector

In industry, centralizing and sharing initiatives not only saves time, it also strengthens team cohesion and speeds up project implementation. Here’s how several industrial companies use IDhall on a daily basis:

• Industries FM: in two and a half years, the company has carried out 115 improvement initiatives, mobilizing all staff and widely disseminating best practices.
• EBS Emballage: by replacing Excel with IDhall, the company has improved traceability and responsiveness, while simplifying the daily work of its teams.
• SWM International: with a single repository, the average duration of R&D projects has been halved, freeing up time for innovation and increasing the number of patent filings.

IDhall in services and logistics

In services and logistics, where teams are often geographically dispersed, IDhall creates a permanent link between stakeholders and simplifies coordination. These examples show how the platform helps streamline monitoring and facilitate decision-making:

• STEF:across 250 sites in 8 countries, action plans resulting from audits are now centralized, which has strengthened coordination and accelerated decision-making.
• Sofinco: the tool makes it possible to quickly identify and address “irritants” that were hindering customer satisfaction and internal efficiency.

IDhall in the public service

In the public sector, the challenge often lies in data reliability and collaboration between departments. IDhall helps address these issues by providing a single space for managing action plans and maintaining regular monitoring. Here are two concrete examples:

• SDIS 58: Centralizing action plans has simplified updates, improved data reliability, and enhanced cooperation between departments.
• SDIS 18: The tool has structured action monitoring, given greater visibility to priority projects, and facilitated team coordination.

These examples, whether from industry, services, or the public sector, show that by centralizing continuous improvement initiatives in a single collaborative space, organizations gain not only in efficiency, but also in clarity and collective commitment. With a clear method and shared visibility, continuous improvement becomes easier to manage… and above all, more motivating for everyone involved.

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