What strategies or frameworks have been effective in promoting a culture of continuous improvement in your organization?

I work with a small data and analytics team that only has 3 bodies. Our framework around CI was designed to be practical and simple so that we could execute consistently. There are really two key pieces we facilitate.

1) Root causing the failures with a consistent, inclusive and transparent methodology. We do this weekly to understand all of the prior weeks failures inside and out. We invite and include our cross functionals to drive trust and alignment and to remove bias. The end result over an extended period of time a very clear understand of WHY things are failing. We can delineate between true one-offs, and recurring/systemic challenges.

2) Doing something about the recurring and consistent themes. We socialize the insights to drive awareness, we prescribe actions to business owners to drive accountability, and we track adherence to the prescriptions to the ensure the CI.

We are about 1.5 years into this framework, and it has truly helped us to transform from the “reporting team” to the “CI team”.

Hope this helps.

I would recommend to first design and officialize a continuous improvement program in the company, that in order to be effective, should consider the strategy of the business, the objectives of the business, and the main KPIs to be managed so that the continuous improvement program implemented can contribute to generate value to the company. 
Also, there are 6 main elements to be continuously improved in any organization: 1) Processes and Task, 2) Structure, 3) People & Competencies, 4) Reward and Recognition, 5) Governance & Performance, 6) Information, and Systems. The continuous improvement programs should offer tools to excel in these 6 elements by applying a loss eradication approach.

I've Seen the LSS and CI frameworks have success, but there is a double edged sword to consider with these frameworks.   What they do a really good job of is to help make a given process more effecient.  What is often absent is the ability to stay connected to what customers want and adapt the process or product to match.    

I think CI and LSS are amazing tools to be used in partnership with those born of innovation like Lean Startup and Agile.   A mission aligned team which can iterate and explore in new and uncertain spaces while also optimizing for lowest cost in the areas where there is a 'right' answer could do some real amazing work.  

To go deeper into what I'm referring to look up the agreement/certainty matrix. Here's one source, but there are others.   https://www.liberatingstructures.com/27-agreement-certainty-matrix/