Without standards there can be no kaizen, Taiichi Ohno. Kaizen is a Japanese word that we can translate as “change for the better”. It’s widely interpreted as meaning “continuous improvement” when referring to process or flow. As Taiichi Ohno (father of the Toyota Production System or TPS) highlights, to improve, you first need to have a baseline standard. From the TPS perspective, standards and the improvement of said standards, relate to two aspects: Process – the work carried out at a particular step on the production line. Flow – the overall flow through the production line from end-to-end. So, if we’re to translate this to cross-functional product teams, our team can determine … Continue reading Standards and the definition of done