I am writing today about “bootstrap kaizen.” This is something I have been thinking about for a while. Wikipedia describes bootstrapping as “a self-starting process that is supposed to proceed without external input.” The term was developed from a 19th-century figure of speech—“pull oneself over a fence by one’s bootstraps.” Another description is to start with something small that over time turns into something bigger—a compounding effect from something small and simple.

One part of the output is feedback into the input loop so as to generate a compounding effect. This is akin to the concept of booting computers, where a computer on startup begins with a small code that is run from the BIOS, which loads the full operating system. I liked the idea of bootstrapping when viewed with the concept of kaizen or “change for the better” in lean. Think about how the concept of improvement can start small and eventually, with iterations and feedback loops, can make the entire organization better.

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