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Exactly. This is all about getting to root causes.

I learned this working in a manufacturing environment for several years the was implementing the Toyota Production System and all the things that are a part of it like Kaizen, Kanban, etc.

After I left I thought it was too bad that all that good process was locked into the manufacturing world. I've seen it creep in more and more, often under the classification of UX with understanding user flows and actual problems of usability on a site (another area where asking why 5 times is very helpful to get to the root of a user's feedback).

I've also seen what I call "kanban flavored agile" be one of the most effective engineering processes for environments with ever changing requirements who don't need the rigid deadlines of sprint-based planning. When I saw it in manufacturing it was all about "just in time delivery" meaning a factory could easily switch production lines when suppliers missed deliveries (or delivered defective goods) or a machine broke down, etc. Which when you compare to the sorts of things that happen most every day in a typical software organization doesn't sound all that different.




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