Thursday, September 24, 2009

The Real Kaizen Behind Scrum


My aikido sensei told me the other day "you need more kaizen, your aikido is not flowing smoothly". I thought to myself, "is my sensei referring to the same kaizen principle that we use in Scrum?".

So, after the class I sat with my sensei and I asked, "what do you oh sensei understand for kaizen?" This is what he responded:

"Kaizen in about seeing yourself and recognizing that you still have still much to improve and learn.

Kaizen is not about beating others, it's about learning and teaching others and together improve.

Kaizen is about being humble and be ready to recognize that your learning path just started and will never really end."

Much of this can be applied to Scrum, don't you think?

4 comments:

  1. How true.

    Stephan
    http://www.codemonkeyism.com

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  2. Stephan,

    I guess that the Toyota Production Systems, which in time influenced Scrum, has been deeply influenced from Japanese cultural values. Aikido is just another cultural expression of those values. So makes kind of sense to find some connection between Aikido and Scrum.

    Regards,

    Juan

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  3. Personally, I think you need to relax more, perform with confidence and use more Ki in your Aikido if it is not flowing smoothly.
    Kaizan, as he described it would seem to apply to your attitude towards learning Aikido, always keeping the beginner's mind.
    That said, I think there are many similarities to the Agile Scrum team and the Lean Kaizan event (which is how I came across your post).

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  4. Thanks for you comment Simon. Really the more I learn the more I realize that the beginner's mind have to be there to continue improving.

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