Kaizen events
Sustainment audit
Sustainment audit is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com).
Customise with AISkill file ↓1 · What it is
What it is
Most kaizen events are checked once, at the report-out, and never again. A sustainment audit is the follow-up: weeks or months after an event closes, restate what it was supposed to change and get a checklist of specific, verifiable practices to check against reality. It's fine, and honest, if some have lapsed — the whole point is catching that before it's forgotten entirely, not confirming everything is still perfect.
2 · When to use it
When to use it — and when not to
Use it when
- An event closed a while ago and you want an honest check on whether its changes actually stuck.
- You want specific, verifiable practices to check — not a vague "is it still working?" gut check.
- You want lapsed practices named directly so they can be fixed, not quietly forgotten.
Not when
- The event just closed — give it real time to settle before auditing it; a same-week audit tells you nothing about sustainment.
- You don't have a real charter or objective to audit against — sharpen that first, or the checklist will be as vague as the input.
- You're looking to blame someone for a lapsed practice rather than fix it — this is a maintenance tool, not a performance review.
3 · How to fill it in
How to fill it in
- Original objective
- What was the event's original objective?
- Sustainment checks
- Drafted from what was supposed to change — specific, checkable practices. Verify each one and check off what's actually still holding.
- Narrative
- Drafted from the sustainment checklist.
4 · What good looks like
What good looks like
The example below audits the kaizen event charter's own worked example — the onboarding ticket resolution event — sixty days after it closed. Four of six practices are still holding and two are honestly flagged at risk, rather than the checklist being quietly marked all-clear.
Same example, as a downloadable xlsx workbook.
Download .xlsxSustainment audit
60-day sustainment check — onboarding ticket resolution event
Auditing: Reduce onboarding support ticket resolution time (Sep 2026 kaizen event)
Priya Nair · 2026-11-16 · 60 days since event
Original objective
Cut median resolution time for first-two-weeks onboarding tickets from 6.2 hours to under 3 hours, without increasing the reopened-ticket rate.
Sustainment checks
4 of 6 holding (67%)
- ✓New triage macro for setup/SSO tickets still in active use
- ✓Median resolution time still tracked weekly on the support dashboard
- ✓Original event owner (Marcus Lee) still assigned to the metric
- ○Updated setup docs still linked from the initial-response macro
- ○Reopened-ticket rate still reviewed alongside resolution time
- ✓Support team still following the event's triage routing change
At risk: Updated setup docs still linked from the initial-response macro, Reopened-ticket rate still reviewed alongside resolution time
Narrative
Four of six practices are still holding two months after the event — the new triage macro, weekly dashboard tracking, and the routing change have stuck, and Marcus Lee is still the named owner. Two are at risk: the updated setup docs are no longer linked from the macro, and the reopened-ticket rate has quietly dropped out of the weekly review. Both are worth a quick fix before they fully lapse.
5 · Common mistakes
Common mistakes
Auditing too soon after the event, before practices have had time to either stick or lapse.
A sustainment audit measures whether change survived contact with normal operations — that takes weeks, not days.
Marking a practice as holding because it mostly is, rather than actually verifying it.
The audit only has value if it reflects reality — a generously-marked checklist can't catch a real lapse before it compounds.
Treating an at-risk finding as a failure to hide rather than a gap to close.
Sustainment naturally decays without attention — naming the gap is what makes it fixable, not a verdict on the original event.
6 · What it connects to
What it connects to
upstream
Kaizen event charter
The charter's objective and commitments are exactly what this audit checks — audit against the real charter, not a vague memory of the event.
downstream
7 · Where AI helps
Where AI helps
Judgement — stays yours
- Deciding how much time to give an event before auditing it
- Deciding what to do about a practice that's flagged at risk
Analysis — AI helps
- Drafting specific, verifiable checks from a description of what was supposed to change
- Drafting the narrative from the checklist actually built
Drudgery — automated
- Tallying how many practices are still holding
- Identifying which practices are at risk
- Exporting to xlsx in the house format
9 · Rate this kata