Making Kaizen Work in Services & Tech, Lessons from KFC Digital

Continuous Improvement is easy to discuss but hard to sustain. Join Ben Richards (KFC Digital) and Philippe Guenet to explore how KFC introduced Kaizen into a complex Business Tech environment and created a culture where Continuous Improvement became part of everyday work

Continuous Improvement is one of the most widely discussed ideas in modern management. Yet in many Service and Technology organisations, it remains surprisingly rare in practice.

Agile promised Continuous Improvement through retrospectives. The reality is often very different. Teams regularly identify problems, frustrations, and opportunities for improvement, yet relatively few improvements ever materialise. Local issues may be addressed, but systemic challenges that span multiple teams, functions, or leadership boundaries frequently remain unresolved.

Over time, people stop raising problems. Leaders wonder why teams show little initiative. Teams become trapped in delivery and improvement takes a back seat.

In our experience, this is rarely a people problem.

Most organisations are simply not designed for Continuous Improvement. Teams have little time to improve, and systemic issues often fall between organisational boundaries. Yet when given the opportunity, people are surprisingly willing to collaborate, solve problems, and improve the system around them.

In this LeanTech Gemba session, Ben Richards from KFC Digital and Philippe Guenet will share the practical journey of introducing Kaizen into a complex Business Tech environment.

The story challenges several common assumptions about Continuous Improvement. Rather than starting with team-level Kaizen and hoping it would spread, KFC Digital first focused on creating mechanisms for systemic improvement across teams and leadership. This created the conditions for team-level Continuous Improvement to emerge and flourish.

The session will be a discussion and will explore:

• Why retrospectives often fail to generate meaningful improvement
• The difference between local and systemic Kaizen
• How to create the conditions for people to take initiative
• Practical approaches used within KFC Digital to build a culture of improvement
• The role of leadership in sustaining Continuous Improvement
• How existing Agile and SAFe practices can be adapted to support Kaizen
• Lessons learned from what worked, what didn’t, and what surprised us

This is not a theoretical discussion about Lean or Agile.

It is a real-world story of organisational change, sharing practical lessons, successes, setbacks, and insights that participants can apply within their own organisations.

#### Who Should Attend?

Team leaders, Engineering Managers, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners, Product Managers, Delivery Leads, Tech Leads, and Continuous Improvement practitioners.

The session is equally relevant for senior leaders including CTOs, CIOs, Heads of Engineering, Heads of Change, Transformation Leaders, and anyone seeking to create an environment where Continuous Improvement becomes part of the way the organisation operates.

Whether you work in a digital product organisation, technology function, professional services business, financial services organisation, or broader Business Tech environment, this session will provide practical ideas for making Kaizen work in the realities of modern knowledge work.

### Speakers

Ben Richards – System Coach, KFC Digital

Philippe Guenet – LeanTech Founder, Executive Coach and Transformation Practitioner
Join us to explore what happens when Continuous Improvement moves beyond the retrospective and becomes a genuine organisational capability.