{"id":4043,"date":"2011-04-29T07:09:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T14:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ubertor.com\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2011-04-29T07:09:47","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T14:09:47","slug":"kaizening-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/29\/kaizening-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Kaizen&#8217;ing&#8217; Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.ubertor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ubertor-culture.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re unfamiliar with the term <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Kaizen<\/span><\/strong>, it is defined (by Wikipedia) as <em>Japanese for &#8220;improvement&#8221; or &#8220;change for the better&#8221;, and refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon <strong>continuous improvement of processes<\/strong> in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>They key thing to take note of is the &#8220;continuous improvement of process&#8221;. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis, always improving productivity.<\/p>\n<p>At Ubertor, our Client Service team document a &#8220;Team Kaizen&#8221; at the end of their work week, that offers 1 way to improve workflow within Ubertor. Kaizen&#8217;s submitted range from simple improvements like adding a knowledge base article for a highly asked question in live chat (submitted\u00a0by <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ubertor.com\/2011\/04\/08\/meet-the-ubertor-client-service-team\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Uber Carl<\/strong><\/a>) to documenting step by step procedures for newly used programs like Basecamp for our Design and Client Service teams (submitted by <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ubertor.com\/2011\/04\/08\/meet-the-ubertor-client-service-team\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Uber Tin<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In my first post for Ubertor culture, I explained that we are a team of 6. If we calculate how many Kaizen&#8217;s are applied per month, that&#8217;s 24! Which means, each month our team is improving 24 different aspects of our work flow.<\/p>\n<p>The key to a great Kaizen (and probably the most important aspect), is not only the idea, but also <strong>the action plan<\/strong> that follows suit. I like to tell my team that a Kaizen without an action plan is simply a suggestion, and anyone can suggest &#8220;this&#8221; or &#8220;that&#8221;. Actions plans must state a clear goal, and ways to achieve this goal.<\/p>\n<p>Test out the Kaizen philosophy with your team, and see what aspects of your business you can improve on.<\/p>\n<div data-counters='1' data-style='square' data-size='regular' data-url='https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/29\/kaizening-your-business\/' data-title='&#8216;Kaizen&#8217;ing&#8217; Your Business' class='linksalpha_container linksalpha_app_3'><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='facebook' class='linksalpha_icon_facebook'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='twitter' class='linksalpha_icon_twitter'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='googleplus' class='linksalpha_icon_googleplus'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='mail' class='linksalpha_icon_mail'><\/a><\/div><div data-position='' data-url='https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/29\/kaizening-your-business\/' data-title='&#8216;Kaizen&#8217;ing&#8217; Your Business' class='linksalpha_container linksalpha_app_7'><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='facebook' class='linksalpha_icon_facebook'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='twitter' class='linksalpha_icon_twitter'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='googleplus' class='linksalpha_icon_googleplus'><\/a><a href='\/\/www.linksalpha.com\/share?network='mail' class='linksalpha_icon_mail'><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re unfamiliar with the term Kaizen, it is defined (by Wikipedia) as Japanese for &#8220;improvement&#8221; or &#8220;change for the better&#8221;, and refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. They key thing to take note of is the &#8220;continuous improvement of process&#8221;. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[138],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4069,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions\/4069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}