One of my favourite interests is to understand the field of software development. Since my degree that I try to understand why software development process is so difficult and why the IT industry is so immature. I, and most of my best college friends, decided to graduate in Engineer, but I was the only guy who decided to degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering (in fact all of us were studying in the "A area", which was the Health Area, however none of us pretended to be a physician). All the other guys decided by Mechanical and Civil Engineering. Thirteen years later we are still seeing each other (true friends are for life). Sometimes our conversations are reflections about our experiences, and we discuss problems about the development process in each area.
One of this guys talked to me a few weeks ago about Kaizen and the adoption of Kaizen in the organization he works. Kaizen is a japanese word and means "continuous improvement". He told me that Toyota is known to have implemented Kaizen. Since these day I began my investigation on Kaizen and looking for implementations in software companies. I've bought from Amazon the book "The Toyota Way". It says:
"The Japanese term for continuous improvement is Kaizen and is the process of making incremental improvements, no matter how small, and achieving the lean goal of eliminating all waste that adds cost without adding to value. Kaizen teaches individual skills to work effectively in small groups, solving problems, documenting and improving processes, collecting and analyzing data and self-managing within a peer group. It pushes the decision making (or proposal making) down to the workers and require open discussions and a group consensus before implementing any decisions."
So, using this definition, do I remember of any software methodology that follows the Kaizen definition? Yes, I remember. I think, in general Agile Methodologies follow Kaizen, but in particular there are two methodologies/frameworks that fit perfectly in Kaizen philosophy: Scrum and LSD (no, it is not the drug, but Lean Software Development).
Let's follow the Kaizen definition
"...is the process of making incremental improvements..."
In Scrum framework, the Sprint finish with the Sprint Retrospective Meeting, in which everybody enumerate what wents well and identify improvements to be made.
"...and achieving the lean goal of eliminating all waste that adds cost without adding values..."
Agile methodologies conducted to the Agile Manifesto. One of the mantras of this agile manifesto is "Working software over comprehensive documentation". In my opinion every Agile mind has the goal of eliminating waste and not include anything that will not be used by our customers (excessive documentation is waste). LSD principles are based on Lean Manufacturing and in LSD, the statement Eliminate Waste is a rule.
"...teaches individual skill to work effectively in small groups..."
Agile Methodologies are only possible with skilled people. Again, Scrum defines small teams (7 elements) and every element in the team must be skilled.
"...collecting and analyzing data..."
In Scrum, we collect and analyze date every single day. With Sprint Backlog and The Sprint Burndown Chart we have a a really sense of the project state
"...self managing within a peer group. It pushes the decision making down to the workers..."
In Scrum, the Team make the decisions and is self-organized and self-managed.
As you can see, there are very similarities with Scrum and Kaizen philosophy. Right now I am studying Kaizen and trying to understand how can we implement it in a software company. I know that the development process of a car is different from software development. The software does not follow the Newton Laws and there is no fixed gravity in software. However, there is an Inertia in software, and this inertia is the Organizational Inertia made by People. Do you think the Portuguese culture follow this Continuous Improvement philosophy: in my opinion only a minority try this approach of Continuous Improvement....NO NO NO...sorry I'm wrong. In fact it is the majority of Portuguese people: better car, better house, better status, etc.