Work

Kaizen

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Kaizen

Last week I went on a Kaas Tailored “waste” tour and was pretty much blown away by what they are accomplishing.

I had read a little about Kaizen and at Nordstrom we are utilizing (somewhat) techniques like Kanban and various other Lean concepts, but to see it put  together and used like a well oiled machine and well, really working (helping the company succeed by helping employees including the managers make their jobs safer, more rewarding, and less wasteful) was so inspirational.

Here’s hoping this way of thinking spreads to a lot more businesses and organizations! If you have a chance to participate in a tour I highly recommend it.

Flow

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While watching Ben Rockwood’s “DevOps Demystified” video,  I was reminded of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This is from the publisher and says it pretty well:

“Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.”

Ben was talking about flow from a different perspective, but not altogether unrelated as the fruits of the current DevOps effort will hopefully lead to more flow of the Mihaly type, especially in our day to day work.