Continual Improvement Management overview

Enable Continual Improvement Management (CIM) and then set up roles, groups, and integration properties to improve your organization's processes and functions. You can use the CIM workbench and dashboard to monitor, plan, and measure improvement success.

The video below gives you an overview of Continual Improvement Management application.

Continual Improvement Management is used to implement service, process, and function improvements. An improvement initiative contains goals to measure success, and phases that contain tasks with specific actions to complete the improvement.

Use the Continual Improvement Workbench to plan and manage improvements. Both tile and list views are supported.

The Continual Improvements dashboard shows progress and results in the form of statistics and charts using Performance Analytics.

To use guided setup to configure and set up Continual Improvement Management application, navigate to Continual Improvement > Administration > Guided Setup and click Configure in the Request CIM section.

Integration with other applications

As part of Continual Improvement Management integration with other applications, an improvement initiative can be created from within other applications, and conversely, records for other applications can be created from within an improvement initiative (or CIM task).

An improvement initiative can be created from these applications.

• Benchmarks
• Coaching
• Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
• Demand Management
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
• Idea Portal
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Exploring Process Mining
• Survey Management
• Vendor Management Workspace

As part of an improvement initiative or CIM task, these records can be created.

• Change record (Change Management)
• Coaching opportunity (Coaching)
• Demand record (Demand Management)
• Knowledge base article (Create a knowledge article)
• Project (Project Management)
• Story record (Agile Development)

Initial CIM setup

Once Continual Improvement Management has been enabled, set up the application by assigning user roles and groups, and configuring integration properties.

• Assign user roles and groups.
  • Improvement Manager role
  • Improvement Coordinator role
  • Approver group membership (CIM Approvers, default is empty)
• Configure properties for Continual Improvement Management integration with other applications.
  • List of applications from which an improvement initiative can be created
  • List of application task records that can be created from within an improvement initiative

Workflow of Continual Improvement Management roles

Figure 1. Roles in Continual Improvement Management

Improvement requests are submitted when an Improvement Requester, such as a help desk manager, process owner, or ITL user, for example, recognizes the need for an improvement anywhere within the company.

When an improvement request is submitted, the Improvement Manager, reviews the improvements, accepts, and assigns it to an Improvement Coordinator for implementation. The Improvement Manager also runs prioritization meetings with Improvement Coordinators and uses the workbench to monitor, manage, and plan overall progress.

After the improvement request is assigned, the Improvement Coordinator along with the Improvement manager, creates phases and tasks to complete the improvement. The Improvement Coordinator also meets with task owners to ensure that they are on track to meet the deadline.

When all work has been completed, the Improvement Manager reviews the improvement for closure, and uses the dashboard reports to measure the status and success of the request.

Email notification

Email notifications are sent when the state of the improvement request changes or when the target date is breached.

Table 1. Email notification list

Improvement action	Improvement Manager	Improvement Coordinator	Improvement Requester	Watch list	Task assignee
Canceled	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Approved	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Closed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Target review date is breached	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
CIM task assigned	No	No	No	No	Yes
CIM task closed	No	Yes	No	No	Yes

Domain separation

Domain separation capability is supported in Continual Improvement Management with no setup or configuration required.

You can create improvements separately in a specific domain, or in the global domain.

• Domain separation and Continual Improvement Management
  Domain separation in Continual Improvement Management is configured to apply to all features of the application. Separation of data is configured along with separation of logic and process. Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.