Toyota Kata

Toyota Kata – Introduction and Experiences

Goal for the event

You will have a basic understanding of the philosophy of Toyota Kata and how it works. This will be achieved by a combination of:

• Short lectures

• Discussion

• Exercises

What is a Kata?

Kata is a routine or repeating pattern for doing something

Why are habits and routines important?

• Can someone describe shortly the difference  between driving a car:

– The first time they drove 

– After several years of experience

Routines and habits are the bases for effective and efficient action!

The Philosophy Behind Toyota Kata

• The second law of thermodynamics:  everything deteriorates over time 

– There is no stable condition that can be maintained

– The only solution is to improve constantly

• Grow people and maximize human potential by engaging people to continually improve as part of their everyday work

Toyota Kata

Improvement Kata

Example: Weight lose

• I will be using weight lose as an simple example of the concepts I’ll be talking about

1. Long term vision

• Also known as “True North” or “North Star”

• Sets the direction for short term plans

• Is brief and describes the outcome and the process

• Toyota manufacturing example paraphrased: 

– “One piece flow, zero defects and 100% value adding steps (no waste)”

• Does not need to be realistically achievable

• Choose wisely  

Weight lose: North Star

• Enough exercise to stay on good shape and relax

• Eat healthy and good food

• Spend quality time with family and friends with good energy

• Get enough rest and downtime

2. Understand the current condition

• Understanding the current condition is the bases for going forward and means going deeper than the superficial lever

– Involves Systems Thinking and a process viewpoint

• “Go and see”

Current condition: Weight lose

• Quality of food is poor and the amount of calories  is too big

– Especially too much carbohydrates and fat

• Not enough exercise

– Weights once a week

– Basketball once a week

• Weight 107 kilograms

3. Set the target condition

• A target condition describes both the outcome and process and can be achieved in 1-3 months 

– In the beginning shorter is better for learning

• A good target condition is challenging

– Just right, not too easy and not too difficult

• You can start with skeleton target (challenge) and fill in the details as you learn more (target condition)

Target condition: Weight lose

• Regular meal and snack schedule

• Less calories per meal by healthy composition of meals

• Exercise

– Weights 2-3 times a week

– Basketball 2 times a week

• Lose 5 kilograms of weight in 3 months

What are the obstacles?

• As part of understanding the current condition and setting the target condition  you gain insights into the obstacles that are in your way

• Pick one (which one seems most important) and start finding your way toward your target condition one step at a time with PDCA experiments

Obstacles: Weight lose

• Meal sizes are too big – food is good and I like to eat

• Too busy and tired to get exercise. Mostly a feeling rather than a fact

4. PDCA experiments

4. Navigate towards the target with experiments

Experiments:  Weight lose

Improvement Kata

Improvement Kata exercise

 

The Coaching Kata

The purpose of the Coaching Kata is to teach and coach the Improvement Kata using real world problems as practice.

When do you need a mentor/coach?

The need never goes a way. You can spend a lifetime learning the Improvement Kata and still have need for improvement. The role of the coach is to help you learn.

No one questions why world class athlete’s need coaches. Why should work be different?

The responsibilities of the mentor

• Teach the basics of the  Improvement Kata to the mentee 

• Develop the mentees abilities by coaching him in the use of the Improvement Kata through real problems/challenges

• The mentor can not give solutions to the mentee, but is responsible for the results

Requirements for the mentor

The mentor must have first hand knowledge and experience of using the Improvement Kata.

The mentor must be involved in the Improvement Kata in order to coach properly. Don’t coach blind.

Coaching before the target condition is set

• Is there a clear and shared vision for the long term goal to set the direction?

• Does the mentee understand the current condition deeply?

• Does he know what is the next target condition? Do you need to give him a challenge that he can turn into the target condition?

Coaching after the target condition is set

The five questions:

• What is the target condition?

• What is the actual condition now?

• What obstacles are now preventing you from reaching the target condition? Which one are you addressing now?

• What is your next step (PDCA experiment)

• When can we go and see what we have learned form taking that step?

The next step

The most important thing is making sure that the next step is clear for the mentee.

It is better for the mentee to figure out the next step, but if necessary the mentor can decide it. Go and see XYZ!

Remember routines are powerful…

… even in coaching!

Coaching questions

Coaching Kata exercise

 

A3 and organizational learning

A3 exercise

Study the A3 template and try to understand how you could use it to help you in the:

– Improvement Kata

– Coaching Kata

Experiences and lessons learned

Toyota Kata at application services unit in Aalto IT

• About 35 people

• Almost everyone has used the Improvement Kata and A3 documents in their work

• 5-10 people use the Improvement Kata actively on their own accord. The rest use it on occasion

• I and few other people can act as coaches, but this is our bottleneck.

• Using Toyota Kata and A3 templates has already made a considerable improvement for us

To what kind of work do we apply the Improvement Kata on?

• Process improvement work

• Improving our production services by understanding and eliminating root causes behind the incidents

• Good substitute for a lot of traditional project work

– For example a design of a new service can be a series of Improvement Katas

Sources and additional information

Toyota Kata by Mike Rother

It is the single best book about Lean I have read and read a lot 

Håkan Forss has also interesting things to say about Toyota Kata.