This chapter covers
- Continuous improvement—the real purpose of kanban
- Respect for people—putting people first
- Retrospectives, root-cause analysis, and Kanban Kata
Since it is people who manufacture things, manufacturing is impossible unless people are developed.
Display at Toyota Technology Museum in Nagoya
“Developing people first” is a core principle in Toyota’s philosophy, and its two parts, “respect for people” and “continuous improvement” (or kaizen), are often referred to as the two pillars of The Toyota Way management system.
This philosophy of improvement is a mindset that can be found throughout Lean organizations like Toyota, from the CEO and overarching strategies to the janitorial staff and how people place their tools on the workbench in order to be more effective. There’s a deeply rooted aspiration to do better, to improve, and to be more effective in the heart and soul of a working Lean organization. It’s the respect for people—respecting, developing, and encouraging everyone in the organization—that makes this possible.
With its roots in Lean thinking, kanban is all about continuous improvement and respect for people. Visualizing the work is an easy but effective way of enabling self-organized improvement work. Limiting WIP and helping work to flow make bottlenecks and improvement opportunities visible to the team, allowing team members to come up with ways to improve.
