So you finally understand the problem. The root cause has been named. The symptoms have been separated from the disease. The customer pain is no longer floating around like a ghost in the passage. Everyone can see the issue more clearly, and then, before the poor process can even catch its breath, someone says the magic words.
“I know what we should do.”
There it is. The favourite idea has entered the room wearing shiny shoes and too much confidence.
South African entrepreneurs are rarely short on ideas. We can make a plan, find a workaround, stretch a budget, borrow a table, redesign a process in a notebook, and still remember to ask whether anyone wants coffee.
The problem is not idea shortage. The problem is idea discipline.
Use this article when the team finally understands the problem and is now in danger of sprinting after the first shiny solution that walked into the room.
Amazon’s Leadership Principle of Deliver Results is useful here because it does not worship effort for effort’s sake. It is not about looking busy, suffering loudly, holding seventeen emergency meetings or sprinting heroically towards the wrong solution with a spreadsheet in one hand and a half-eaten rusk in the other.
Deliver Results asks for the right outcomes, delivered despite setbacks.
In the Improve phase of DMAIC, the work is no longer about admiring the problem. By this point, there is an important assumption: you have already gone through Define, Measure and Analyse with enough discipline to know what you are trying to fix.
Define should have clarified the problem. Measure should have shown what is actually happening. Analyse should have helped you understand why it is happening. Only then should Improve walk in.
Improve is the phase where possible solutions must earn the right to be tried.
Improve is not the phase where you finally get permission to unleash your favourite idea because you have been emotionally attached to it since April. Improve is the phase where possible solutions must earn the right to be tried.
That is the shift. Deliver Results does not always mean “pick something and move fast”. It means choose a solution that fits the problem, the root cause, the customer impact, the business constraints and the capacity of the people who have to make it work. Otherwise, you are not improving. You are redecorating the problem.
For a solo entrepreneur or start-up, this matters even more. A big company can sometimes survive a clumsy solution because there are buffers, teams, budgets and people with job titles that sound like kitchen appliances. A small business does not have that luxury. A wrong fix can cost cash, time, trust and energy the owner was already borrowing from next week.
So before the business goes full throttle into Improve, pause. Do not marry the first idea. Do not move in with the second idea. Do not start naming imaginary children with the idea that simply feels easiest because it arrived first and complimented your Canva template. Date the ideas properly. Ask questions. Check the red flags. Meet the family. Then choose the solution that can actually deliver.
The first tool is brainstorming, but not the messy kind where every idea gets thrown onto a wall and the loudest sticky note wins.
In the Improve phase, brainstorming must be locked to the root cause. You are not asking, “What could we do?” That question is too broad. It invites chaos, opinions, pet projects and that one person who has been waiting three months to suggest a new app.
A better question is: “What solutions directly address the root cause we found?”
That one question changes the room.
If late customer responses are caused by unclear ownership, the solution is probably not a prettier email template. If hiring mistakes are caused by inconsistent interview criteria, the solution is probably not “trust your gut harder”. If repeated order errors are caused by manual handovers, the solution is probably not telling people to “be more careful” with the energy of a disappointed auntie.
Root-cause-locked brainstorming keeps the business honest. For a solo entrepreneur, this can be very simple. Write the root cause at the top of the page. Then create three solution lanes.
One quick fix.
One process fix.
One prevention fix.
The quick fix helps now. The process fix changes how the work happens. The prevention fix reduces the chance of the same issue returning in a new outfit next month.
That is already better than a free-for-all idea storm. It gives the founder options without turning the notebook into a crime scene.
The second tool is brainwriting.
Brainwriting is useful because not every good idea arrives loudly. Some of the best thinking arrives quietly, slightly late, holding a pen and needing everyone else to stop performing for a minute.
In a team, brainwriting lets people write ideas before discussion begins. That helps prevent the loudest person, most senior person or most confident person from shaping the solution too early. It gives quieter voices, newer employees and practical frontline knowledge a chance to enter the room before the usual suspects start rearranging the furniture.
For a solo entrepreneur, brainwriting can still work. You just have to borrow different seats inside your own business.
Write from the customer seat.
Write from the cash-flow seat.
Write from the operations seat.
That sounds simple, but it is powerful. The customer seat may say, “I need the next step to be clearer.” The cash-flow seat may say, “This solution cannot require three months of spending before we know if it works.” The operations seat may say, “Lovely idea, but who is actually doing this on a Tuesday afternoon when orders, staff questions and Eskom all arrive at once?”
Suddenly the founder is not only thinking as the dreamer. They are thinking as the system. Many start-ups are run by one person wearing multiple invisible hats. Founder. Salesperson. Recruiter. Customer service. Finance department. Packing assistant. Emotional support animal for the business bank account.
Solo brainwriting gives each hat a voice before one shiny idea takes over.
The third tool is assumption busting.
This may be my favourite little troublemaker in the Improve phase. Every business has assumptions sitting quietly under the table, nibbling the ankles of better solutions.
“We cannot charge more.” “Customers will not fill in a form.” “We need to do this manually.” “The team will resist.” “We cannot change the process during peak.” “This has to be handled by the owner.”
Some assumptions are true. Many are old survival rules wearing a fake moustache.
Assumption busting asks the business to name the hidden rule and challenge it before choosing a solution. The point is not to be reckless. The point is to check whether the solution space has been made too small by beliefs nobody has tested.
For example, a small business may assume customers will not accept a structured booking process because they are used to WhatsApp. Maybe that is true. Or maybe customers are not attached to chaos. Maybe they simply want speed, clarity and confidence that someone has their request under control.
A founder may assume they must personally approve every customer issue because that is how quality is protected. Maybe that was true when there were ten orders a week. At fifty orders, that same rule may become the bottleneck wearing the crown.
A team may assume conflict must be handled informally because “we are small”. Maybe the relationship is close. But close does not mean clear. Sometimes the smaller the team, the more important it is to have a clean way to repair tension before it becomes office folklore.
The Improve phase asks: what if the assumption is the cage? That question opens better options.
The fourth tool is benchmarking.
Benchmarking is where things can get dangerous for small businesses, because benchmarking is not copying. Copying is how a tiny business ends up trying to behave like a giant retailer, except with one staff member, three plug points and a printer that screams like it saw the ancestors.
Benchmarking means learning from how others solve similar problems. The trick is to benchmark the principle, not the costume.
A larger company may have a structured returns process. The start-up does not need a grand portal, a ticketing empire and a customer journey map that looks like it was designed by NASA. The useful principle may be simpler: make the next step clear, reduce back-and-forth, and show the customer what to expect.
A stronger team may have a regular way to handle workplace tension. The small business does not need an HR department in a blazer. The useful principle may be: create a repeatable way to name the issue, agree the next step and repair the working relationship.
That is benchmarking with dignity. You are not cosplaying as a bigger business. You are borrowing wisdom and resizing it for the business you actually have.
The fifth tool is the solution selection matrix. This is where the dating phase ends and the serious questions begin.
A solution selection matrix helps compare possible solutions against criteria. For a solo entrepreneur or start-up, it does not need to be complicated. It simply means you can list your options and compare them in a simple table on a single page, using a few clear criteria to help you decide. The point is to stop choosing based on preference, panic, novelty or whoever spoke last.
I would call it a Results Fit Matrix. Because that is what we are really asking. Does this solution fit the result we need?
The criteria can be simple.
Does it address the root cause?
Will it improve the customer or employee experience?
Can we afford it?
Can we test it quickly?
What is the risk if we are wrong?
Do we have the capacity to implement it properly?
That last question matters more than people admit. A solution can be clever and still be wrong for right now. If it needs time, money, skills or emotional bandwidth the business does not have, it may become another half-built bridge in the swamp.
Small businesses are especially vulnerable to solutions that are technically good but operationally ridiculous.
A founder reads about automation and buys software before cleaning the process. A team adds another approval step to prevent mistakes and accidentally slows everything down. A business changes the hiring process, but nobody has time to use the scorecard properly, so everyone returns to vibes with extra admin.
The Results Fit Matrix forces the solution to face reality. Not the fantasy version of the business. The real one. The one with cash flow pressure, staff constraints, customer expectations, family interruptions, load-shedding, school runs, supplier delays, and the owner answering emails at 10pm with one eye open. That is not negativity. That is responsible improvement.
Deliver Results is not about pretending constraints do not exist. It is about delivering despite them.
This is why the Improve phase needs both creativity and discipline. Brainstorming gives you options. Brainwriting makes space for quieter or competing perspectives. Assumption busting opens the cage. Benchmarking brings outside learning into the room. The Results Fit Matrix helps choose what deserves action.
The best-fit solution does not need to become a business-wide rollout on day one. Often, it earns the next step: a small test, a short trial or one controlled change before the whole business is asked to follow.
Together, these tools stop the business from dating every idea in the room. Because ideas can be charming. Ideas can make you feel productive. Ideas can give the meeting a little sparkle. But results come from choosing the right solution, testing it against the real problem, and committing to the work required to make it live.
That is where Deliver Results becomes more than hustle. It becomes judgement. It becomes focus. It becomes the ability to say, “Good idea, wrong fit.” Or “Interesting idea, not yet.” Or “This one is not glamorous, but it solves the root cause and we can actually implement it.”
So pressure test your own room:
Are you improving the problem you proved, or chasing the idea you liked first? And before you go full throttle into Improve, have Define, Measure and Analyse done enough work to deserve the keys?
This is a personal thought piece, written in my private capacity from my own customer experience and process improvement perspective. It draws on publicly available information and reflects my own views, not the views of my employer. It does not discuss or rely on confidential company information.