A Scrum Book

Kaizen and Kaikaku

Scrum is a framework not only for producing product, but also for constantly advancing the abilities of the team creating that product. From a process perspective, Scrum is all about improvement, which, in Japanese, is just “改善.” In its own process improvement effort, Toyota took kaizen as a slogan, usually written as “カイゼン.” The international community picked up the term and started using it in the sense they projected from Toyota’s programs: continued, relentless improvement. The next pattern, ​¶19 ScrumMaster​, describes the role that owns the Scrum process in a Scrum team and which often leads the charge for kaizen. However, it’s important to remember that kaizen is everyone’s job: the ScrumMaster is just the team’s kaizen ...