This free kaizen event checklist is for kaizen leads, continuous improvement managers and process owners who run focused improvement events of a few days on one process, in a factory, a warehouse or an office. One run is one kaizen event. It charters the event with a measured problem, a scope and two or three targets, and the sponsor approves the charter before any preparation starts. Then it picks and releases the team, measures the baseline, maps the current state and books the room and the support. The event days go and see the process, find the waste and its causes, try changes in the area and write the new standard work. The last day measures the results against the targets and lists the open actions at the report-out. A 30-day follow-up checks that the change held. A task to clear changes that touch safety or quality checks appears when needed, and a recovery phase appears when the targets are missed.
Kaizen means continuous improvement: small changes, made often, by the people who do the work. A kaizen event, also called a kaizen blitz or kaizen workshop, packs that into a few days on one process. The Lean Enterprise Institute says such events commonly last five days, and that during the event a team identifies and implements a significant improvement in a process. It also warns that gains made in an event are quickly lost when people go back to the old way of working. That is why this checklist starts six weeks before the event and ends 30 days after it.
A kaizen event is one of several improvement tools, and it is not always the right one. A continuous improvement cycle runs PDCA as a standing programme, one cycle after another. A root cause analysis (8D) investigates a problem whose cause nobody knows yet. A 5S audit keeps a workplace in order once it has been improved, and the process standardisation checklist writes and maintains the standard work an event produces.
Use it when: the problem sits in one process, the team can see it, and the change is small enough to try in days.
Produces: a changed process, new standard work, results against the targets and a list of open actions.
Ends with: a 30-day review that checks the change held. This template.
Use it when: a team improves its own process continuously, one small cycle after another.
Produces: a steady stream of tested changes and an improvement register.
Ends with: the next cycle. A kaizen event can be one turn of it, done at speed.
Use it when: a defect or complaint keeps coming back and nobody can prove why.
Produces: a verified root cause and escape point, with permanent fixes.
Ends with: a closed 8D. An event run before the cause is known tends to fix symptoms.
Eight phases take one kaizen event from charter to a result that has lasted 30 days. The sponsor approves the charter before any preparation starts, and nothing after it can be completed until they do. A task to clear changes that touch safety, quality checks or the customer appears when the team's ideas need it, and Phase 8 appears only when the 30-day review finds the targets missed or the change slipping.
A kaizen event with a vague aim spends its first two days arguing about what it is for. Write the problem, the scope and two or three measured targets on one page, and get the sponsor to approve it. Nothing after the charter can be completed until the sponsor approves it, so no team is released and no room is booked for an event nobody has agreed to.
The team needs people who do the work every day, and it needs a baseline measured before the event, the same way it will be measured afterwards. Without the baseline, the report-out compares the new process with a memory of the old one.
An event loses half a day every time the team waits for a key, a maintenance fitter or an IT login. Book the room and the area, put the support people on call and fix the report-out time before the first day.
The first day belongs in the area, not the meeting room. The team watches the process as it runs, times it and corrects the map with what it saw, so every idea later in the week rests on facts the whole team has seen.
The middle of the event is a cycle: find the waste, ask why it is there, try a change in the real process, measure it and keep what works. A task to clear the changes that touch safety, quality checks or the customer appears when the team says any of its ideas do.
The report-out shows the sponsor and the area what changed, against the targets in the charter. Anything the team could not finish goes on one open actions list, with one owner and a date for each, so the work carries on after the team breaks up.
Most of what slips after an event slips in the first weeks, as people go back to the old way when nobody is watching. The open actions are checked every week, the new standard is observed on different shifts, and the measures are taken again before the sponsor closes the event. A recovery phase appears when the 30-day review finds the targets missed or the change slipping.
Applies only when the 30-day review finds the targets missed or the change only partly held. Find out why before adding more actions: a change that slipped needs a different fix from a change that never worked.
The event days are the visible part of a kaizen event. The weeks before decide whether the team has the data, the people and the support to change anything, and the weeks after decide whether the change lasts. The timeline below is for a five-day event that starts on a Monday, which is how this checklist sets its due dates. For a three or four-day event, bring the Days 2 to 4 work forward and keep the rest.
| When | What happens | What it produces | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 weeks before | Problem, scope and targets written; the sponsor approves the charter | An approved one-page charter | A target nobody measured, or a solution written into the problem statement |
| 4 to 2 weeks before | Team chosen and released; baseline measured; current state mapped in the area | Baseline figures and a current-state map | Measuring the baseline one way and the result another |
| Final 2 weeks | Room, area time, materials and support booked; agenda and report-out time set | An event that can start on time | No maintenance or IT support on call, so changes wait for a ticket |
| Day 1 | Go and see the process, time the steps, correct the map | Facts the whole team has seen | Spending the day in the meeting room |
| Days 2 to 4 | Find the waste, ask why, try changes in the area, measure them, write the standard work | A changed process and new standard work | Planning changes on paper instead of trying them |
| Last day | Train the shifts, measure the results, list open actions, hold the report-out | Results against the targets and an open actions list | Open actions with no owner or date |
| 30 days after | Check actions weekly, observe the standard, measure again, review with the sponsor | A result that has held, or a recovery plan | No follow-up, so the old way comes back |
The seven wastes. The Lean Enterprise Institute lists Taiichi Ohno's seven wastes as overproduction, waiting, conveyance, processing, inventory, motion and correction. On Day 2 the team tags each step on the map against them. In an office, conveyance is a file passed between desks or systems, inventory is work waiting in a queue, and correction is rework after an error. The guide to lean manufacturing principles explains each one, and the guide to value stream mapping shows how to draw the current-state map.
Targets the team can measure in a week. Choose measures the team can take again on the last day and 30 days later, the same way each time: lead time, the number of steps or handoffs, walking distance, errors or rework, floor space, or work waiting at a step. A measure that needs a quarter of data to move belongs in a longer project.
The sponsor is chosen on the first task, and the charter approval is assigned to them alone. Nothing after the approval step can be completed until they record a decision, so a team is never released for an event with no agreed problem, scope or targets. The sponsor also accepts the results at the report-out and closes the event after the 30-day review.
Enter the first day of the event and every task falls due on the right day, from the charter six weeks before to the review 30 days after. Move the event and the dates move with it. The Reports Grid shows every event in progress and which tasks are overdue, so a kaizen lead running several events sees where each one stands.
The open actions list, the observation of the new standard and the 30-day measurements are tasks with owners and dates, not good intentions. When the review finds the targets missed, a recovery phase appears, set up with conditions in the template designer. The baseline, the map, the photos and the results sit on the task that produced them.
CheckFlow does not draw your value stream map or time your steps for you. Draw the map on paper or in your own tool and attach it to the tasks. CheckFlow runs the work around the event: who does each step, by when, with what evidence, and who approved it. CheckFlow for manufacturing shows how plants run their other quality and production checks the same way.
An event usually ends with new standard work. Keep it current with the Process Standardization Checklist, and keep the improved area in order with the 5S Audit Checklist. For improvement as a standing programme rather than a single event, use the Continuous Improvement Cycle Process Checklist, and read the guide to continuous improvement for where kaizen sits among the other models.
Continuous Improvement Cycle Process Checklist
Process Standardization Checklist
5S Audit Checklist
Root Cause Analysis (8D) Checklist
CAPA (Corrective & Preventive Action) Checklist
Describe the process in a sentence and the AI checklist generator drafts the phases and tasks for you.
A kaizen event is a short, focused improvement event, usually a few days, in which a small team improves one process. It is also called a kaizen blitz or kaizen workshop. The team goes to where the work is done, measures it, finds the waste, tries changes in the real process and writes new standard work. A good event is chartered weeks in advance with measurable targets, and followed up afterwards to check the change held.
The event itself commonly lasts five days, according to the Lean Enterprise Institute, and shorter events of three or four days are also run. The work around it takes longer. This checklist charters the event about six weeks before, measures the baseline and books the support in the weeks after that, and follows up for 30 days after the report-out. Its due dates assume a five-day event starting on a Monday; for a shorter event, bring the middle tasks forward.
Kaizen is the everyday habit of improvement: everyone, every day, making small changes to their own work. A kaizen event is one concentrated burst of it, with a team taken off their normal work for a few days to improve one process. Daily kaizen often runs as a PDCA cycle, which the continuous improvement cycle checklist covers. An event suits a problem that is too big for a daily suggestion but small enough to change in a week.
The people who do the work every day come first, because they know where it goes wrong. Add someone from the step before and the step after, a person from maintenance, IT or quality who can make changes, and one or two outsiders who will ask why things are done the way they are. The kaizen lead facilitates and the process owner takes the process back afterwards. The sponsor approves the charter and the results but is not usually on the team.
The problem in measured terms, without a solution written into it. The scope: the first and last step, the area and shifts covered, and what the team may not change. Two or three targets, each with today's figure, the target figure and how it will be measured. The dates, the team, the kaizen lead, the process owner and the sponsor, and any limits on spending. The sponsor approves it before any preparation starts.
The Lean Enterprise Institute lists Taiichi Ohno's seven wastes as overproduction, waiting, conveyance, processing, inventory, motion and correction. During the event the team tags each step on the current-state map as adding value, needed but not adding value, or waste, and names the type of waste. The point is not the label but the question that follows: why is this waste here, and what can we change this week?
Plan the follow-up before the event ends. Train everyone who runs the process on the new standard work, put every unfinished item on an open actions list with one owner and a date, and fix the date of a 30-day review at the report-out. In the weeks after, check the actions every week, watch the process on different shifts against the standard, and measure it again the same way as the baseline. If the targets are missed, find out why before adding more actions.
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