"Question everything"

Euripides said: "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing."

Not too long ago I had the great pleasure of participating in a Toyota Business Practices (TBP) training. It was an eye-opener. That a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was able to reach such market dominance internationally was in no small part due to the guiding principles of its founder Sakichi Toyoda and his successors (notably Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno) that revolve around the simple ideas of designing out overburden (muri) and inconsistency (mura), and to eliminate waste (muda). That is, whatever the established work process is, look at it as a possible target for improvement by altering it in ways allowing more streamlined operations (eliminating any unnecessary or unproductive activity). "Question everything." Just because it has always been done this way does not mean this is ultimately the best way of doing it. And if it not, let's fix it. "Question everything" is also a foundation to agile thinking.

My kind of philosophy. Looking at things with critical eyes but not for the sake of criticism itself but with the mind of continuously making things better (kaizen).

Inspiration can be found everywhere. Interestingly, the inspiration for the Toyota Production System (TPS), did not come from within automotive industry, but from visiting a Piggly Wiggly supermarket (incidentally, during a visit to Ford in the United States in the 1950s). The delegation was impressed by how the supermarket only reordered and restocked goods once they'd been bought by customers. This lead to the application of this practice in the automotive manufacturing process resulting in what has become known as the Toyota Production System, a system admired around the world for quality and efficiency.

Questioning everything has become a motto for my work at Toyota Canada Inc. I have been looking at business applications, processes (manual or automated), any activity with a mind that continually challenges: can it be done even better? Not every time the answer will come at the moment the question is raised. But when observing the way things are done (genchi genbutsu = go and see for yourself), and allowing the impressions sink in, inevitably ways of improvement will emerge. Maybe just very small improvements. But that's not the point. The point is the focus on making things better. For you, for the company and for the society within which the company operates.

What is agile?

A gazillion of articles (a good chunk of it actually very useful and meaningful) has already been written about what it means to be agile. My two cents:

Most such introductions into the world of agile start with some dictionary definition copied straight from the OED or Webster or some other authority. So I will not copy those definitions yet again. I will just lay out what agility means to me.

Things around us are in constant flux. Change is the fundamental attribute of the universe around and inside us. Beings, in order to sustain their own existence have to adapt to their constantly and unavoidably changing environment. The ability to respond to the changes around us in an appropriate, timely and efficient manner is, in my dictionary, called agility. Such timely, appropriate and efficient response to change requires a combination of skills. Some, but not all, that are required are:

• Intelligence: the recognition and correct interpretation of the change
• Balance: the purpose of adaptation is to reestablish a new balance point that accommodates the factors that changed
• Coordination: multiple things may have to be altered in order to respond to the change requiring coordination across them
• Speed: timely response is key in avoiding the fate of the dinosaurs
• Determination and Endurance: the change may require prolonged actions necessitating the determination of the mind and the endurance of the body

The application of these skills is not limited to the physical world. The same skills are required when change hits an company, a business unit, a project, any process or initiative.

I am hoping to bring into focus each of the required skills and their application in various contexts. My hope is that I will not be the only one including practical examples from experience but that people reading these entries will also add their own life experiences.

Agile-Do

For some time I have been considering a blog, a conversation about the way of agile in all business contexts. This comes from two of my key interest areas: marital arts and process improvement. That is, the way (do in Japanese) of the warrior and the way of the agile practitioner in IT projects in particular and in business processes in general. Into this blog I will be entering my thoughts on the subject of bringing these two worlds into harmony. On how the principles of martial arts apply in the context of an agile business. I call this new art Agile-Do.

Hajime! Let's get started!