It is useful to have guiding principles on how to be a good employee, teammate and tester.
I work in teams that describe themselves as lean or agile and so I am interested in learning what lean and agile are. Learning about how lean and agile came about helps me understand them. John Willis has spoken about how the history of ideas in our field can be described as Deming ->Toyota->Lean->Agile. I have learned, and am learning, about many of the American roots of lean and agile such as the work of Deming and Shewhart. I am now learning about the Japanese roots of lean by reading Katie Anderson‘s book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn with the Deming Profound Book Club. Her book examines the life and career of Toyota executive Isao Yoshino.
Yoshino sees direct parallels between the leadership precepts of Tokugawa and Toyota’s culture. Tokugawa was the first Shogun and achieved supremacy in 1600[1]. Precepts are general rules intended to regulate behaviour or thought [2]. The table below shows Togukawa’s precepts and Yoshino’s view of Toyota’s culture[1]:
| Yoshino’s view of Toyota’s culture | Tokugawa’s leadership precepts |
| Steadiness and have a long-term view | Life is like a long journey with a heavy burden on your back. Don’t hurry |
| Diligence | One who regards inconvenience as natural will never be discontented. When you want more than you have, remember the days when you were in need |
| Learn from failure | If you only know what it is to conquer and don’t know what it is to be defeated, it will be harmful to you. |
| Patience | Patience is the base of being safe forever. Regard anger as your enemy |
| Leaders take responsibility | Blame yourself, not others. |
| Humility | Not being enough is better than being too much |
Yoshino considered the foundational principles of Toyota’s culture to be influenced by Tokugawa’s precepts[1]. The Toyota Production System has influenced lean and agile software engineering, so Tokugawa’s precepts can be seen as one of the roots of Lean and Agile.
Tokugawa’s precepts still provide a useful guide today. They are a guide which can show how to deal with situations, for instance by being patient. They can also show when we could have done better, for instance by showing humility.
I have started using them as guiding principles and am interested to see what I learn. I have already learned how valuable humility is when pair programming, such as developing Playwright tests with a developer. Humility enabled us to listen to and learn from one another. Previously I had thought of humility as a virtue but now think of humility as being a principle that will help me be a better employee, teammate and tester.
I would like to thank Dennis Sergent for his helpful questions that have made me think about humility.
References:
[1] Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn by Katie Anderson (2021, Foundational Leadership Lessons)
[2] Kindle dictionary
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