Kaizen - the path to perfection

Kaizen, Kaizen (Jap. 改善 Kaizen, Romaji Kaizen; the wrong version of Kaizen occurs) is a Japanese philosophy or practice that focuses on the continuous improvement of production processes, development, supporting business processes and management, as well as all aspects of life.

In the article, I will describe some useful, well-recommended and simple Kaizen practice tools that can be started without significant effort.

But first, a little history. The philosophy originated in Japan after the Second World War, since then it has taken root well in the country's manufacturing industries and has increased the quality level of Japan’s goods and services by an order of magnitude. There is no doubt about the effectiveness of this philosophy. After so much time, it is still used and has long gone beyond the limits of production and is used in any area that you can imagine.

The most remarkable thing about kaizen is that it is just a cultivation philosophy; by definition, it is applicable to all aspects of life. Based on this philosophy, many tools and mechanisms for setting up production and software development have been developed. As you may have guessed, the article will deal with the use of kaizen in the IT field. Kaizen is based on the idea, the idea of ​​improving and optimizing any processes. The following principles can be distinguished.
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The principles of kaizen:

• People who directly perform work, as a source of optimization ideas.
• Determination in the implementation of any idea.
• Use tools and methods to find new ideas.

In fact, you can come up with a lot of principles. And since kaizen is still a philosophy, not an exact science, I will not ship you “thanks cap” lists.

In my opinion, the key point here is determination. In some cases, ideas for improvement are obvious, but they require actions that are not performed because of procrastination. In other cases, they require changes in the “microclimate” around, which is not easy to implement, given the conservative nature of man and possible changes in lifestyle.

For example, Jeff Sutherland , one of the creators of the Scrum methodology , sees kaizen as a means of eliminating interference. The key point is that the whole team, and not just the scrum master, is looking for interference. And the task of eliminating the most serious interference is made to the next sprint reserve.

Kaizen can be abstracted to different levels of development and activities in the IT field, ranging from organizing the developer's desktop to the development methodology in a large company. But all have the same foundation - to improve the development process, make more efficient use of time and available resources in order to eventually get a quality product.

A lot of kaizen methods were invented, the lion’s share of them was created to optimize processes in companies, but I will try to project 2 kaizen methods for professional human needs in the IT field.

5S / 5C / 5U

The method includes 5 points, the observance of which will help to establish order on the desktop (real and virtual) / room / office / in life.

S eiri C lear up Y dalit	Understand files / items on a table or room. Remove / remove from the desktop all unnecessary. Be honest with yourself and do not leave what has already been covered with a centimeter of dust.
S eiton C onfigure Have to clean up	Arrange those files / items that remained. The most used ones should be in a convenient place, everything should be in its place, which should not be confused. In manufacturing plants, the so-called shadow method is used - where the instrument should lie, the contour is drawn, the sticker is glued. This is done so that you can immediately see a tool that does not lie in its place. Therefore, if your cup on the table left a circle, then this is certainly Seiton.
S eiso C lean up Have taken	Place your purity. Wipe the dust, clean the computer, take a photo of the desktop background image, wash the cup, finally, which left an outline on your desk.
S eiketsu C lean Wrestling	Keep it clean. Keep it all the same. Work you will be much nicer.
S hitsuke C custom At root	Take adherence to these principles as a rule. Do not stop before cultivation. Watch for compliance with all principles.

The important thing is that comfort and cleanliness around contribute to productive work. It does not matter whether it is a desktop computer, workplace, room, office, server or warehouse.
This topic has already slipped on Habré , but for a long time.

Elimination of seven losses

This is one of the principles of the Toyota production system. In the analysis of production, they combined all the actions for which they incur losses in 7 categories. Here they are:

1. (Re) movement
2. Plain
3. Overproduction
4. Treatment
5. Marriage
6. Transportation
7. Inventories

Isn't it familiar? Not? Below I will identify each of the points and try to draw a parallel with the development.

(Re) movement

Movement within a limited space, not creating added value

In production	In developing
Search for materials, parts, drawings or documents.	Search for materials, modules, documentation or files.
Pulling hands up to tools.	Pulling the hand up to the mouse / keyboard.
Raising drawers with details.	Lifting crates of beer.

Plain

Simple, caused by the lack of necessary people, materials, information or equipment

In production	In developing
Waiting for parts or drawings.	Waiting module or documentation.
Waiting for information.	Waiting for information or how should it work?
Waiting for repair of the machine.	Waiting for fix bug in the module or in the program that you use.
Waiting for people.	What can I say. People always have to wait.

Overproduction

Production volume beyond consumer needs

In production	In developing
Production for stock.	Writing parts of the application without the need, without having a TK. Perhaps the implemented part is never useful.
Production in large quantities with the subsequent readjustment of equipment.	Writing most of the software product, followed by a change in its documentation.
Production of a large number of products with the subsequent service.	Creating a large number of parts of products that require technical support.

Treatment

Efforts not creating, from the point of view of the consumer, value added

In production	In developing
Unnecessary operations.	Excessive ornateness of the application.
Bad design.	Bad design immediately after the first viewing will force yourself to finish. The design should be user friendly. (The beauty of design is a completely different story)
Repeated cleaning / cleaning.	Take care of memory resources. Do not leave anything extra in the application.

Marriage

Imperfect product

In production	In developing
Scratch.	Bug
Defects.	Baaaaag !!!
User breakdown.	Oh, and what is this window?
Missing parts.	And where is this feature that we need?

Transportation

Move between factories or office spaces that do not add value to finished products or services

In production	In developing
Move parts or equipment to and from the warehouse.	Change application repository.
Irrational arrangement of equipment.	Not rational location of the application. Test application, business, etc. Testing should not be too difficult.
Transporting parts between processes.	Exporting libraries for use in another project.

Stock

Availability of materials above the required volume

In production	In developing
Raw materials.	Of course, disk space is not so expensive now, but still it is worth monitoring the amount of stored data, especially if you use paid services with limited memory size.
Unfinished production.	Incomplete applications that never come out and for which you never get a reward.

Improve, friends. Start right now.