Samenvatting

Companies today are in the continuous improvement game continuously anticipating customer needs at the same time as reducing transaction costs. It’s a tough game, in which techniques evolve so fast that an organisation with rigid management cannot hope to keep up. Indeed, requirements for management seem almost contradictory: customer-focused, flexible, structured, innovative and cost sensitive.This article describes the approach used by KPN to give management more control over continuous improvement whilst remaining flexible in operational detail. Moreover, this approach helps bridge the gap between business and IT people by providing them with a single language to discuss the many projects they are jointly engaged in.