Disruptive Improvement

Concept and Best Practice

Small tweaks aren’t always enough. Sometimes bold, sweeping changes are needed in order to stay ahead. Disruptive Improvement refers to making fundamental, breakthrough changes in an organisation’s products, services, or processes. Changes so significant that they dramatically shift performance outcomes, rather than just tweaking the status quo.

In practice, true Disruptive Improvement is relatively rare as a primary strategy. Most organisations focus on smaller-scale project-driven or continuous improvements, resorting to disruption only when necessary. However, when the business environment shifts dramatically (new technologies, market upheavals, etc.), incremental tweaks can fall short and a disruptive approach can become essential to avoid failure.

 

 

What is Disruptive Improvement?

Disruptive Improvement can be understood in parallel with the well-known idea of disruptive innovation, a term coined by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, which involves innovations that create new markets or value networks and eventually displace existing ones. Similarly, Disruptive Improvement within an organisation means making radical changes to products, business models, or processes that yield step-change improvements in performance.

Key Characteristics of Disruptive Improvement:

  • Breakthrough Change

It fundamentally rethinks or replaces a process rather than optimising it. For example, a company might reengineer its entire supply chain with automation and AI, achieving tenfold efficiency gains (a disruptive leap) instead of a few percent improvement.

 

  • New Value Creation

The change often delivers new value to customers or opens new markets. In disruptive innovation terms, it might introduce simpler, more accessible offerings that address unmet needs. Internally, disruptive process improvements might enable services or capabilities that were not possible before.

 

  • High Uncertainty and Risk

Because it ventures beyond familiar territory, Disruptive Improvement carries more uncertainty than routine projects. The outcomes and challenges aren’t fully known at the start, unlike well-trodden continuous improvements. It may require leaving the comfort zone of established best practices.

 

  • Larger Scope

Disruptive efforts often cut across multiple functions or require organisational reinvention. They can involve new business models (e.g. shifting from product sales to service subscriptions) or major process overhauls (like adopting a completely new manufacturing technology). This typically demands strong change management due to its breadth.

In summary, Disruptive Improvement is about “thinking big”, making bold changes that can redefine how an organisation operates or what it offers, in order to leap ahead of incremental gains. It aims for dramatic results and new strategic advantages, albeit with higher risk and complexity.

Implementing Disruptive Improvement

Implementing Disruptive Improvement in an organisation often requires special strategies, frameworks, and tools that differ from those used for routine improvements. Because these initiatives carry high uncertainty and scope, organisations use approaches that foster innovation, rapid learning, and cross-functional collaboration.

Key Tools and Methods for Disruptive Improvement:

  • Innovation Programs (Intrapreneurship)

Many companies set up internal programs to generate and incubate breakthrough ideas. Examples include corporate incubators and accelerators, where teams are temporarily freed from daily duties to develop new products or business ideas in a startup-like environment.

These programs provide resources, mentorship, and a sandbox for experimentation. For instance, some firms run hackathons or accelerator cohorts. In-house incubators (like Google’s Area 120) allow internal “startups” to prototype radical ideas without the constraints of the core business.

Such intrapreneurship initiatives encourage employees to think entrepreneurially and pursue bold concepts.

 

  • Radical Process Redesign

For operational improvements, methodologies like Business Process Reengineering (BPR) are classic tools of disruptive change.

BPR entails the radical redesign of core processes to achieve dramatic improvements in metrics such as cost, speed, quality, or customer satisfaction. Instead of refining a workflow step by step, BPR wipes the slate clean, asking “If we were starting fresh today, how would we organise this work?”, often enabled by tech or new organisational structures.

Quality and improvement management techniques, like Lean Six Sigma, traditionally focus on incremental improvement, but can support disruptive projects by identifying waste and redesign opportunities at a larger scale.

 

  • Design Thinking & Lean Startup

When pursuing disruptive product or service innovations, design thinking is a popular tool.

It is an iterative, human-centred approach to problem-solving that can uncover radical solutions by deeply understanding customer needs and brainstorming without constraints. Design thinking workshops help teams break out of conventional assumptions and may lead to entirely new product concepts or business models (for example, reimagining a service around customer convenience in ways competitors haven’t tried).

Complementing this, the Lean Startup methodology (build-measure-learn cycle) is useful to manage the uncertainty of new ideas: teams rapidly build prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) to test assumptions in the market, then iterate. This approach allows an organisation to experiment with potentially disruptive ideas on a small scale, learn quickly from failures, and refine the concept, increasing the odds of eventually scaling up a winner.

Agile development practices similarly enable fast, adaptive progress when implementing novel solutions.

Disruptive Improvement:
What Works and What Doesn’t

Not all attempts at Disruptive Improvement succeed, underscoring how challenging they are to get right. Over time, organisations and experts have observed patterns in what tends to work vs. what doesn’t when managing disruptive changes. Key differences are highlighted below:

Effective practice:

Strong Leadership Vision and Support

Top executives actively champion the disruptive initiative, provide a clear vision, and align resources behind it. This leadership alignment ensures the effort isn’t stifled by short-term thinking.

Common Pitfall:

Weak Leadership or Conflicting Priorities

Attempts falter when executives are not truly on board or send mixed messages. If leadership remains focused only on the core business or is unwilling to cannibalise existing products, disruptive projects can wither due to lack of priority and resources.

Effective practice:

Embracing Uncertainty with Flexibility

Successful disruptors “navigate the fog” of new markets by exploring multiple options and continuously updating their strategy as conditions evolve. They invest in research, gather diverse data, and remain ready to pivot. This avoids false confidence in any one assumption.

Common Pitfall:

Over-reliance on Linear Planning

Companies that stick to rigid plans based on limited assumptions often become overconfident in a flawed strategy. They may ignore warning signs (e.g. shifting costs or customer behaviours) until it’s too late.

Effective practice:

Dedicated Teams and Structures

Effective organisations often set up a separate team or unit for the disruptive project, with a mandate and resources insulated from day-to-day bureaucracy. They appoint leaders who are empowered to break norms and speed up decisions. This skunkworks-style approach keeps the initiative from being bogged down by the core business and allows a different culture to flourish.

Common Pitfall:

Forcing New Ideas Through Old Processes

Handling disruptive innovation just like any other project; subject to the same slow approvals, KPIs, and risk aversion of the main business. Without carving out space, teams find themselves constrained by “business as usual,” unable to experiment or move fast enough.

Effective practice:

Stakeholder Engagement and Buy-in

Successful efforts put heavy emphasis on communicating the vision and progress to all stakeholders, including investors, employees, key customers or partners, to earn their understanding and patience.

Common Pitfall:

Neglecting Stakeholder Concerns

Things go wrong if stakeholders are left in the dark or feel threatened.

Effective practice:

Fast Experimentation and Adaptation

Effective Disruptive Improvement involves rapid cycles of trying, learning, and refining. Teams that prototype early, test in real conditions, and iterate (using lean startup principles) can discover what works sooner and adjust course.

Common Pitfall:

Slowness and Inertia

A deadly mistake is being too cautious or slow. Large organisations sometimes fall into complacency, taking too long to develop the new idea while more agile competitors seize the opportunity.

 

Disruptive Improvement- image - 12

Reimagine. Reinvent. Lead.
The Strategic Case for Disruption

Disruptive Improvement isn’t easy. But when done right, it can reshape how an organisation operates and delivers value.

Whether through intrapreneurship, Agile development, or radical redesign, the key is to stay flexible, experiment fast, and lead with purpose.

At PMI, we’ve helped organisations navigate complex change with confidence, using proven methodologies and a deep understanding of what drives performance. Disruptive Improvement is about taking bold ideas and executing them with clarity, speed, and strategic intent. It enables organisations to break free from legacy constraints and unlock new capabilities that deliver lasting impact.

As markets evolve and expectations shift, those who embrace Disruptive Improvement will not only survive, they’ll set the pace for others to follow. We believe the future belongs to those willing to rethink, reimagine, and reinvent. And we’re here to help you do just that.

Let's Talk

AI for Performance Improvement Courses

AI Foundations

Cut through the noise with a jargon free introduction to what AI is, how it works, and where to start.

See Dates & Book

AI for Leaders

Level-up your leadership team with the knowledge they need to lead the organisation into the AI Age.

See Dates & Book

AI for Practitioners Bootcamp

Create champions of AI improvement and get them ready to innovate using AI in their day-to-day work.

See Dates & Book
Related
Why Accurate Data Isn’t Always Trustworthy Data

Why Accurate Data Isn’t Always Trustworthy Data

Discover
FAQ: Do I Really Need Both Agile and Lean Six Sigma?

FAQ: Do I Really Need Both Agile and Lean Six Sigma?

Discover
FAQ: What’s the ROI Timeline for a Green Belt Project?

FAQ: What’s the ROI Timeline for a Green Belt Project?

Discover

MEETS US AT THE GEMBA!

GEMBAfication is PMI’s new podcast for improvement professionals looking for an honest view of what improvement really looks like in practice. Because in our world, every experience is valuable.

Listen Now

Copyright © Process Management International Ltd 1998 - 2026