Dandotsu: Radical Excellence as a Goal

The Japanese term dandotsu refers to a superiority so overwhelming that comparison loses its meaning. Where kaizen advocates continuous improvement through small steps, dandotsu sets a different ambition: not merely being better, but reaching a level where competition becomes irrelevant.

This philosophy is not about arrogance but radical self-demand. It questions the compromises we accept out of habit and pushes us to rethink standards rather than simply exceed them.

Beyond Incremental Improvement

Kaizen, a pillar of Lean, relies on accumulating small improvements. This approach is powerful but carries a risk: optimizing a fundamentally flawed system rather than rethinking it.

Dandotsu invites a different question. Instead of asking “how do we reduce bugs by 10%?”, it asks “why do we accept bugs at all?”. Instead of “how do we speed up deployments?”, it asks “why isn’t deployment instantaneous and invisible?”.

This radical reframing of objectives forces us to examine constraints we take for granted and distinguish real limits from self-imposed ones.

Application in Software Development

In IT, the dandotsu approach manifests through objectives that initially seem impossible. Zero bugs in production. Deployment in one command. Response time under 100 milliseconds. Automatic recovery from any failure.

These objectives are not wishful thinking but design constraints. If zero bugs is the goal, then architecture must make bugs impossible rather than merely detectable. If instant deployment is the goal, then infrastructure must be designed to enable it from the start.

Companies that have adopted this mindset (Netflix with chaos engineering, Amazon with continuous deployment) did not achieve these results through progressive improvement of an existing system, but by designing systems where these properties are structural.

The Benchmarking Trap

Improvement through benchmarking, measuring performance relative to competitors, is the antithesis of dandotsu. Comparing yourself to others anchors you in a catch-up logic rather than breakthrough.

If your competitors deploy once a week and you aim for twice a week, you remain prisoner to their frame of reference. Dandotsu asks: why not a hundred times a day?

This question is not rhetorical. Organizations do deploy hundreds of times daily. They did not get there by improving a weekly deployment process, but by building infrastructure where frequent deployment is the structural norm.

Demand and Humility

Dandotsu may seem elitist or unrealistic. Yet its essence is a form of humility: acknowledging that our current standards are choices, not inevitabilities.

Accepting a “normal” defect rate, an “acceptable” deployment time, a “sufficient” availability, is normalizing mediocrity. Dandotsu refuses this normalization not through sterile perfectionism, but out of respect for users and for the craft.

The goal is not to achieve perfection immediately, but to refuse to define success relative to others’ failures. It is a compass that orients daily decisions toward structural excellence rather than local optimization.