Kaizen

A key measure of a successful product organization is its ability to deliver on Quality commitments. This usually is the cost of entry in a competitive market landscape. There is no magic formula for an organization to get there. Key remains building a culture of continuous improvement.

In Japanese, there is a term that describes “continuous improvement” mindset well. It is called “Kaizen”. Toyota actually mastered this and it later became part of the DNA of various Japanese companies causing them to win the marketplace primarily on the basis of Quality.  

Kaizen emphasize the culture of continual small improvements that yields large results in a form of compound productivity improvement over a period of time. The “zen” in Kaizen emphasizes the learn-by-doing aspect of improving productivity. Idea remains smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.

In our industry one way to measure Quality is considering how its “Quality curve” looks like during product development. It is plotting number of defects on y-axis during various phases of product development. A traditional organization that deals with quality late in the development cycle may look like the following:-

to another with the emphasis of bringing quality early on during the development cycle:-

So watch out next time as you encounter bumps that can be improved. What you do to get around those bumps and how you address it has an impact towards building winning organization. Every effort counts.

Cricket calling

This weekend after almost 20 years I got to play cricket again at the local High School. It was a sheer coincidence that led me to the game this weekend. I must admit I need to brush off my rustic memory around all the Cricket rules, regulation and terms. At times, it took me while to recollect when I was asked to do the umpiring or when I was asked to field at a position – cover, mid-point, slip, etc. For those new to the Cricket here is a good introduction and comparision with baseball.

So this weekend I spend some time catching up on the Cricket world. Amazingly, last few weeks turn out to be shaping the future of Cricket in India. People who follow Cricket are probably aware of IPL, ICL and the auctioning of cricket players who are now fetching over million dollars. Overnight close to a $1B star-studded franchise took birth with these new leagues. This is something unheard of in the Indian cricket scene that remained largely controlled by the bureaucratic BCCI.

In some regard, these leagues are the epitome of growing Indian economy and a large middle class that has surplus cash to spend. Although in India, Cricket has always attracted most money of any sports but now it is achieving a scale of different proportion. It appears to be now playing at the NFL, NHL kind of leagues and influencing the world Cricket landscape.

The web is abuzz about the events here and how it is shaping up the future of Cricket including speculation of a super bowl like event between ICL and IPL. I just hope this wealth and stardom goes beyond cricket to help improve the infrastructure and elevate the stature of other sports in India. Quite some changes in the game of Cricket.