This weeks Business901 podcast, featured Karen Martin the co-author of  The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service and Technical Environments. Karen shared so much new information that I have split the podcast in 3 parts of 20 minutes each. These podcasts are a wealth of information on Kaizen Events and a great companion to her book. A lot of "How to" was explained.

One of the first questions I asked Karen in the interview:

Joe: So when you say that they run numerous Kaizen Events, actually, I noticed one thing on your website where you said a typical organization of a hundred people, only have four Kaizen Events a year. So, a Kaizen Event is different than a continuous improvement process or your weekly meeting for continuous improvement process. What is the difference?

Karen: Yes. Good question. Kaizen Events are a formalized, structured approach to making rapid improvement, whereas, really, what the goal is of any organization is to develop a Kaizen culture. In a Kaizen culture, improvement happens continuously. It happens without the need for the type of formalized process that involves a tremendous amount of planning, and really, quite a bit of effort. In fact, Kaizen Events can be quite painful for an organization because of the number of people they have to pull off their regular jobs and sequester them for two to five days. They should be reserved for the most intense types of improvements that need to be made.

What some organizations do, and one of the criticisms of Kaizen Events, is that they'll get hooked on Kaizen Events and only make improvement during a formal event. That's not at all the intention of a Kaizen Event. So, I view them as a good way to indoctrinate an organization into the improvement process and teach the skills.

In fact, you'll hear Kaizen Events referred to as Kaizen Workshops and Kaizen Blitz. The workshop term reflects the deep learning that occurs in a Kaizen, if it's well facilitated. So, it is true that there's a risk that organizations can become dependent on Kaizen Events and use them for all improvement and never really evolve into a Kaizen culture.

But, I do believe Kaizen Events offer a very good first step. Often, for many, many years, I think, non‑manufacturing organizations, in particular, can benefit from Kaizen Events.

This helps get the culture embedded into the DNA of the organization, the whole concept of continuous improvement.

Related Blog Posts:

A Kaizen Event is one of the most popular ways to rapidly improve a process and make the gains stick. Or is it?

A Preview to Kaizen Week