Whilst reading about productivity and management techniques, it’s struck me how often Japanese terms crop up. Intrigued, I dug deeper and found a wealth of Japanese words, phrases and philosophies that either mirror or can apply to the way we build websites and software in the West.

Let’s start with a history lesson. Following defeat at the end of WW2, Japan was a broken nation — their resources drained, industries broken and two of their major cities laid to waste on a scale never before imagined. The Japanese people though, displayed an attitude known as ganbaru (頑張る) meaning “stand firm”. A stoic resolve to patiently push onwards, regardless of how hard things get. This trait is famously associated with the Japanese, for example in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The aftermath of Hiroshima. Source: Popperfoto/Getty

During this time, Japan went through a kaikaku (改革) or “radical change”. Their manufacturing output went from being a laughing stock, to international renown for excellence, and they became the second largest economy in the world. This contrast is illustrated in Back To The Future 3 when Doc Brown (from the 1950s) declares “no wonder this circuit failed — it say ‘Made in Japan’” to which Marty (from the 1980s) replies “What do you mean? All the best stuff is made in Japan.”

Edward Deming visiting Japan. Source: The Deming Institute

This incredible recovery was due to a combination of factors including radical economic reform and selling arms to the United States during the Korean War, but also support from the US. This included financial investment but more importantly, the transfer of knowledge from manufacturing experts such as William Deming whose techniques and expertise had proved crucial to the success of US tank production during the war.

Japanese manufacturers, Toyota in particular, took Deming’s approaches to heart, building and extending upon them. The result was methodologies such as Lean Manufacturing that then spread across the world and eventually into the realm or software and web development.

An original kanban board. Source: Toyota

If you’ve ever worked on a large project, then the chances are you have encountered the kanban board — a visual overview of workflow. Kanban (看板) originated at Toyota and is translated literally as “picture board”. The photo above, taken in the 1970s, illustrates the original version of this tool. The racks here are actually just for storage — the individual boards were passed between stages of the production process indicating what had and hadn’t been done, and could be hung up, for example on the lip of an open engine bonnet.

Lean Manufacturing set out to improve throughput by minimising three forms of waste:

Muda (無駄) — any output or activity that does not produce value

Mura (斑) — inconsistency or unevenness of output

Muri (無理) — overburdening of workers

Overburdened brush salesman circa 1890. Source: Old Photos of Japan

When thinking of Japanese manufacturing, it’s hard not to picture factory floors occupied by rows of robotic workers. Jidoka (自働化) is the automation of tasks but with “intelligence” or a “human touch”. The principle being that human workers offload repetitive tasks to be automated, but be flagged immediately when faults occur so that the cause can be remedied. Using task-runners to carry out linting and automated regression testing is a digital equivalent of this.

An “andon board” highlighting machinery requiring human attention. Source: Toyota

A similar concept is to design tools and workflows in such a way that errors can’t actually be made. The Japanese term for this, which is a pleasure to say out loud, is poka-yoke (漢字). The simplest example of poka-yoke in action is having data/power cables with connectors that can only be inserted in one orientation, preventing a situation where a piece of equipment fails to function correctly, or worse be damaged.

We mentioned kaikaku (a radical change) earlier. It’s opposite, and equally valuable concept, is kaizen (改善). Literally this translates as “change better”, though a more accurate interpretation is “to make constant, small improvements”. The idea of continuously making small, but positive steps forward can apply to personal growth, bettering society or in the case of 1950s Japan, the improvement of workflows and assembly lines. Of all the ideas listed in this post, I would say that kaizen is probably the easiest, yet most valuable to adapt in your daily work.

As an aside — the concept of kaizen was diverted slightly by American author Robert Maurer. He argued that when making big changes in your life — such as adopting a gym routine or quitting smoking, we often fall foul of feeling overwhelmed and giving up (see my previous post Your Own Brain is Sabotaging You). Instead he proposes rather than going in full-steam, you take a very minor step forwards each day. For example instead of going straight to the gym to start a new health routine, on the first day you just get out of bed and put on your gym gear, then redress and go about your day. The next day you put on your gym gear then go sit in the car. The day after that you do the same but drive to the gym. The following day you drive to the gym and go in for five minutes. You get the idea — you build up the change in small steps. It does paint a slightly amusing picture but the idea is that by pacing yourself with small, non-intimidating steps you “sneak past your limbic system” and achieve bigger, lasting change.

Statue of Buddha at the Tōdai-ji temple. Source: WordRidden on Flickr

Mid-twentieth century economic recovery isn’t the only part of Japanese culture that we can draw inspiration from. Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a phrase that is difficult to translate directly but means an acceptance and appreciation of imperfection and the natural cycle of birth, growth and death. One form of wabi-sabi is the repairing of broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold or bronze colours to highlight their imperfections. Wabi-sabi also means to accept three realities: “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect”. All three of which are familiar truths in our fast-moving world of deadlines and a constantly evolving technological landscape.

In a similar vein is hansei (反省) meaning “self reflection”, in particular to accept and learn from your mistakes.

Karate training circa 1938. Source: Wikimedia

Kata (型) which means “form” is an important term in the field of martial arts, referring to the different stances, poses and moves that form the foundation of everything else. Masters of the martial arts practice repeating these forms daily until muscle-memory kicks in and their use becomes second nature. A similar approach can of course be taken to programming — testing and practising your skills daily to yield faster results later. The community coding site Codewars refers to each of their exercises/challenges as kata.

Another concept of Japanese martial arts is shuhari (守破離), meaning “learn, question, forget”. These represent the three stages of mastering an art — first obeying and following what you are taught, then questioning the how and why, before finally finding and choose your own methods. Or, to quote Addy Osmani “First do it, then do it right, then do it better”.

Hopefully this whistle-stop tour of some Japanese culture has provided insight and inspiration toward the way you approach your own development work, be it leveraging tools such as kanban, jidoka (intelligent automation) and poka-yoke (error prevention), taking time to carry out hansei (self reflection and learning from mistakes), practicing kata or adapting a mindset of kaizen (making constant, gradual improvements) — you too can become a master of your art.