Why Continuous Improvement?

Notre Dame has been highly successful - and always making improvements - since it was founded. So why do we need to do anything new (Continuous Improvement or otherwise)?  

 

 

We have more challenges, and they are harder than ever to meet: 

 

 

 

  • The University has a bold vision and challenging goals
  • The economic climate continues to be difficult
  • Notre Dame staff is already very busy
  • Students, faculty, and staff have many needs, some of which are not being met (as we know from our surveys)
  • While meeting our challenges, we must be good stewards of the University's resources

Our normal way of improving is good, but will not take us where we need to go quickly enough. If we do not speed up our improvement and look to new areas and techniques, it will be difficult to meet our goals.

Continuous Improvement (CI) is one of those techniques. 

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Properly-adapted for Notre Dame's culture, CI helps by:

  • Freeing-up staff time to focus on tasks we have been too busy to do, and on new tasks related to our future aspirations
  • Allowing us to be better stewards of our resources
  • Giving us new ways to respond to issues in surveys raised by faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends
  • Making it easier for us to work across divisions
  • Showing us ways to save money

And, Continuous Improvement is already working at Notre Dame!