Jon Fulton - Metric Driven Kaizen

Our Agile Yorkshire Xmas Lightning Talks Competition in 2015 featured eight dynamic speakers, each delivering a rapid-fire 10-minute talk that captivated the audience. With strict time limits and audience voting, the event was both entertaining and informative. This video was captured during the 2015 competition, showcasing one of the memorable talks from that evening. Enjoy the content! In this engaging talk, Jon Fulton explores the concept of metric-driven Kaizen using an interactive demonstration involving water and orange juice to illustrate the impact of Work in Progress (WIP) on system flow. Jon explains how limiting WIP improves throughput and delivery by reducing context switching and focusing on completing work. Through a real-world example, he shows how a team that limited their WIP saw a significant increase in productivity, supported by cumulative flow diagrams. Jon ties this back to Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, explaining how tracking metrics like cycle time and throughput encourages teams to experiment and improve their processes. He highlights how these practices, when shared across teams, create a culture of collaboration and ongoing improvement within organisations.