Improving
Yokoten
The team organizes itself to spread what it has learned throughout the organization
Improving
Impact on the testing maturity
Yokoten cannot be a centralized top-down “standard”. Sharing is promoted rather than enforcing practices [Larman 2014]. This leads Managers to act as Landscape Gardeners who simply take care of seedlings and let them grow. Actually, “ Rigid standards will only kill kaizen … ” [Larman 2014] [Imai 2012].
Few Yokoten practices from Japanese culture:
Nemawashi (根回し, making arrangements): this is an informal way to get support from coworkers and others before starting a project - this increases the chances of success of the project [Roser 2021]
Tatakidai (叩き台, chopping block or springboard for discussion): reaching a consensus and informing others when the project is 80% complete in order to improve acceptance likelihood [Roser 2021]
Ringi (稟議, decision making using a circular letter system to inform all superiors and workers): the “ringi” is the japanization of the English word for “ring”; in Japan, it helps decision making since an employee is able to make a proposal on a document that travels around the company across all stakeholders who approve or request modifications. After the approval of all lower management levels, the approval of the CEO is then a mere formality. Also called “ ringi seido ” or “ ringi system ” [Roser 2021]
Asaichi (朝市, “Morning Market”): literally, “ the first thing in the morning ” [Imai 2012] - this usually takes place as a daily meeting with a commitment to never carry forward the same problem to the next day [Imai 2012]
Nomu (飲む, drink, smoke, take): in Japan, meeting at afterworks, drinking and chatting informally is essential to learn things kept untold, the tacit knowledge [Nonaka 1995]; this is so important that in Japan, a term rose from the mixing of nomu and communication : “ nominication ” or “ nommunication ”
Some other Yokoten-like practices from the agile culture:
Community of Practice
Retrospectives (with escalation process) or Inspect & Adapt from SAFe [SAFe 2021-49]
Liberating Structures : series of workshops at scale techniques [Lipmanowicz 2014]
Tea-REX : Return of Experiences at tea time [Moustier 2020]
3 amigos
Flying Mentors : Mentors should be spread across the organization to evenly raise it maturity [Moustier 2020]
Daily Standup Meeting : Scrum introduces the DSM to raise alerts on the Sprint objectives [Schwaber 2020]
X-Teams : Teams are enabled with networking and Ambassadors features [Ancona 2002] to increase the Team’s sharing and solving abilities notably thanks to broadcasting, influencing and conversing [Appelo 2010]
Review Bazaar : demos are organized as a Science fair with visitors [Larman 2010]
Event-Storming : Ideation engineering technique at organization level [Brandolini 2021]
Impact Mapping : workshop to spot actors, impacts and deliverables from a goal [Adzic 2013]
PanTesting
As these practices tend to push information through the organization, it is a passive way of preparing the Gemba from the learnings of the Yokoten.
When Yokoten is to be set in an organization, the usual development of yokoten-type communication mechanisms starts first within a single Team, then department and eventually between departments.
Agilitest’s standpoint on this practice
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