The Kaizen team should set as a goal to accomplish as much as possible during the Kaizen event itself. A Kaizen event with a long list of “to do” items remaining at the end was probably too ambitious. Inevitably, however, there will be some items remaining that will need to be completed. The real success of the Kaizen will be measured later on, when the changes are stable and all of the recommendations have been implemented.

The event coordinated is the “owner” of the remaining action items, although various team members and individuals will be responsible for actually accomplishing them. The coordinator will need to be persistent and have sufficient influence to ensure that things do get done in a timely fashion.

Make sure that all of the items from a previous Kaizen have been completed. It doesn’t make much sense to continue to add items to a list of actions that have not been completed.

The executive team should meet with the Event Coordinator to review the Kaizen results and especially any remaining action items that will need to be coordinated. The action list needs to be formalized and published, and a follow-up meeting scheduled for the following week in order to monitor the results.