He also came to appreciate the routine practice and repetition that was required to become really good at something and to overcome the boredom by focusing on minute improvements.
From Taiichi Ohno's workplace management
Once he asked me how the terms kaizen and kairyo (reform) were differentiated in the West. I said that while kaizen means to make improvements by using brains, kairyo means to make improvements by using money, and that in the West, most managers only think of improvement in terms of money. [Massaki Imai]
From Nudge
The best way to help Humans improve their performance is to provide feedback.
From Becoming a Technical Leader
People improve their performance not by amputating their old behaviors, but by adding new ones.
From The Toyota Way
Extra inventory hides problems... Ohno considered the fundamental waste to be overproduction, since it causes most of the other wastes… big buffers (inventory between processes) lead to other suboptimal behaviour, like reducing your motivation to continuously improve your operation.
From Smart Swarm
If individuals in a group are prompted to make small changes to a shared structure that inspires others to improve it even further, the structure becomes an active player in the creative process.
From Peopleware
The more you improve the way you go about your work, the harder the work will be.
The paradox of the CMM is that process improvement is good, but process improvement programs aren't, or at least they often aren't.
From Implementing Lean Software Development
The paradox is that in our zeal to improve the predictability of software development, we have institutionalized practices that have had the opposite effect. We create a plan, and then we act on that plan as if it embodies an accurate prediction of the future.
From Dr Deming
To improve output, production, sales, profit, quality, or any other important factor, every part of the organization had to improve.
From Toyota Kata
The improvement kata does not come to life in an organisation simply because it is a good idea.
In many cases the normal operating condition of an organisation - its nature - is not improving.
At Toyota, improving and managing are one and the same.
From Certain to Win
If a just-in-time production line had to wait for a formal decision process to work, it would hardly move at all, and it would never improve.
From Toyota Production System
Improvement is eternal and infinite.
From Quality Software Management: Vol 4. Anticipating Change
You need stability in order to make improvements.
Testing to improve, not to prove.
If leadership improves then the culture must improve.
