Kaizen: Continuous Improvement in Small Steps

Kaizen is a Japanese word usually translated as continuous improvement. Masaaki Imai brought it to a Western audience with his 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. The idea is to improve all the time in small steps, involving everyone, rather than waiting for one big change.

For a small business, kaizen is less a programme than a habit. A few minutes a week spent fixing the cause of one problem adds up to a business that runs noticeably better within a year.

Small steps beat big projects

Big improvement projects stall because they need time, money and attention that a small business rarely has spare. Small improvements need none of those. They also carry less risk: if a small change does not work, you undo it and try something else.

Most kaizen routines follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle associated with W. Edwards Deming:

1. Plan: describe the problem, measure it and decide on one change.
2. Do: make the change, on a small scale first.
3. Check: measure again and compare.
4. Act: keep the change and write it down, or try something else.

A weekly kaizen routine

This routine suits a team of two to twenty people:

• Fifteen minutes every Friday. Same time, every week.
• One problem each. Each person names one thing that went wrong or took too long that week.
• Pick one to fix. Choose the one that happens most often, or costs the most.
• Find the cause, not the symptom. Ask why it happened until you reach something you can change. The 5 Whys guide shows how.
• Name an owner and a date. No owner, no change.
• Log it. A simple list of date, problem, fix and result. After a year you will have around 50 improvements.

Rank your improvement ideas

When you have more ideas than time, rank them. Put a rough yearly benefit and one-off cost against each idea. The tool shows which pays back fastest and which is worth the most. The example ideas are illustrations; replace them with your own.

In the example, the printed job checklist costs £50 and is worth £2,400 a year, so it pays back in 50 ÷ 2,400 × 12 = 0.25 months, about a week. That is the one to do first.

What makes kaizen stick

• Act on suggestions quickly. If ideas disappear into a list, people stop suggesting them.
• Celebrate small wins. Share each improvement with the team.
• Measure. "It feels better" is not enough. Record a before and after figure.
• Never use an improvement to cut someone's job. If efficiency costs people their jobs, they will stop helping you find it.