Kaizen translates to good change. It originates from Motorola in the 1980s and is a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices and personal efficiency within organizations. Kaizen is part of a six sigma or process improvement and is one of the many tools you can utilize for process improvement. The outcome of a Kaizen event is an actionable plan for intervention to an existing process. Kaizen is small incremental changes in a process to benefit the whole. The theory of Kaizen is to gather those impacted by the change to garner their feedback and collaborate to identify minor ways to modify a process when executed well the minor change results in beneficial change to the whole organization. The core tenets of a Kaizen event is to define process flow and share that process flow with the event team, improve process by focusing on the current state and collaboratively find solutions. It is narrowly focused on a specific process so that you can be immediate with your implementation. Kaizen is small scale change as a means to create lasting change. It is essential to keep in mind that a Kaizen event is an intervention not an end to end solution. It will result in a tweak or modification to a specific focused process. Psychologically people become discouraged when the big change doesn't result quickly or doesn't match their expectations no matter how unrealistic. The best way to avert this problem is to set realistic expectations by making human scale or incremental changes. In incremental changes are easier to implement and are more lasting. Systems, organizations and individuals are comprised of interdependent components. Metaphorically if a car is broken down the best mechanic will analyze the root cause for the breakdown make one change observe if that changed work and make a decision based on the outputs to determine what to do next. Evidence proves that when you change too much all at once you cannot be certain that any one change resulted in positive gains. If the mechanic decided to change out the entire system didn't pause to observe the changes and simply gave it back to your wholesale with a huge bill you'd be massively disappointed. By focusing on the step-by-step process you can highlight and understand dependencies. It will define the order of operations and show possible opportunities for improvement. That's where Kaizen helps to define the process, find the roadblocks or wrenches and then remove them to help optimize performance. This change happens on a human scale, limited in scope and impact. Therefore it can be easily implemented between one to three individuals. It doesn't require large scale reconfiguration or restructuring. Kaizen continuous improvement is focused on the process because it can be easily broken apart for analysis. It is also under immediate control of the individuals impacted. Part of the process mapping will provide you with a clear view of how the process currently works. By collaboratively mapping out the current state it creates a shared mental model or a shared understanding of what's actually happening, not what should be or what I think happens. Process also identifies a flow. It shows all event participants how everything under consideration is interconnected. By analyzing the process steps we can collaboratively determine if there are missing steps. There are too many steps. The steps meet or exceed the expectations of the customer. Metrics are what matters to your customer. Therefore you need to understand how they're oftentimes general or broad-based needs can be defined by specific measures. They are a baseline of service, they are proof and evidence. In addition metrics are an excellent way to define your organizational direction. They are an honest and unbiased opinion to get at the truth of your current state. This is an essential piece of a Kaizen event. Without metrics there's no way to determine the success of a change. Next steps. Define the current process. Roles or players this can be a racy chart but it should focus specifically on the process deliverables that each member must deliver. Metrics for measurement. This is the tangible outcome to inform the individual contributor whether or not they have met expectations, communication requirements. It's ongoing to ensure that the action plan provided in the Kaizen event even worked if not then you need to schedule another one.