Toyota set up a long-term strategy in 2007: Toyota Global Vision 2020. The very generic “Toyota Way” outlines the two most important values: “Respect for People” and “Continuous Improvement”. The current rough economic situation shows that this is not only a “happy day paper” but it has really been embraced in the regions. One example outlined in this post from the Evolving Excellence blog is the reaction of the North American plant managers to the industry’s downturn in Q3 2008: they trained the people instead of sending them home. However, the unprecedented crisis seems to make job cuts unavoidable – the first time since the 50ies. Therefore, titles like “Will This Economy Finally Push the Toyota Way Into Software Development” become ambiguous. Anyway, it’s far too shortsighted to put agile software development on a level with “the Toyota Way”. So, let’s have a look at KM at Toyota in one of the next posts.