Kaizen

A Japanese term meaning 'change for the better' or 'continuous improvement.' In manufacturing, Kaizen was popularized by Toyota's production system, where every worker is empowered to suggest and implement process improvements. In software and agile contexts, Kaizen describes the cultural habit of regularly examining how work is done and making small, targeted improvements. Unlike large-scale process overhauls, Kaizen focuses on incremental changes that are immediately measurable. Sprint retrospectives operationalize Kaizen in Scrum: each retro surfaces specific pain points, the team selects one improvement, and it is implemented in the next sprint. Kaizen requires psychological safety — people must feel safe identifying problems without blame.