The DevOps Handbook

21Reserve Time to Create Organizational Learning and Improvement

One of the practices that forms part of the Toyota Production System is called the improvement blitz (or sometimes a kaizen blitz), defined as a dedicated and concentrated period of time to address a particular issue, often over the course of a several days. Dr. Spear explains, “...blitzes often take this form: A group is gathered to focus intently on a process with problems…The blitz lasts a few days, the objective is process improvement, and the means are the concentrated use of people from outside the process to advise those normally inside the process.”

Spear observes that the output of the improvement blitz team will often be a new approach to solving a problem, such as new ...