Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement in Japanese, focuses on making small, incremental improvements that add up to significant change.^[1] In product development, this means that instead of launching major redesigns, teams identify daily opportunities for enhancement.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Spot daily opportunities. Monitor how users interact with your product daily. Notice small frictions like users hesitating on certain buttons or repeatedly checking same information.
2. Make incremental changes. Implement tiny improvements — adjust button placement by 10px, reduce form fields by one, or simplify one error message. Each change should be small enough to implement and test quickly.
3. Measure micro-impacts. Track metrics before and after each small change. If moving a button increases clicks by 2%, or simplifying text reduces support tickets by 3%, you're on the right track.
4. Build on successes. Chain successful small changes together. After improving individual form fields, enhance the entire form flow based on combined insights.
5. Create improvement habits. Encourage team members to identify and suggest small enhancements during their daily work rather than waiting for major update cycles.