This is a workshop to introduce the TOYOTA KATA practice and get some hands-on experience how to apply it in your own team for both professional and personal context. The material is based on Mike Rother's TOYOTA KATA book and extensive research on change management, improvement and handling complexity in today's organisations. We have used TOYOTA KATA for creating continuous improvement habits in customer support, sales, executive and agile development teams as well as preparing for our next team marathon. Enjoy!

1. London Management 3.0 Meetup
Creating better management
Co-hosted tonight by Agile in Covent Garden
Andrea Darabos
Lean Agile Coach, Trainer
LEAN ADVANTAGE Ltd.
Andrea@leanadvantage.co.uk
Ryan Behrman
Agile Coach
EPAM Systems
Ryan_Behrman@epam.com

2. Start the New Year
with TOYOTA KATA
Andrea@leanadvantage.co.uk

3. Image: http://bit.ly/1ThO7TY

4. Image: http://bit.ly/1ThO7TY

5. Why Do Most New Year Resolutions Fail?
• They are not specific
• They are unrealistic
• They are based on willpower,
not on a process

6. Same is True For Improvement Efforts
Hmm…
How can we make improvement
a habit?

7. Kata is a routine or repeating pattern for doing something
What is a KATA?
Image source: Teemu Toivonen

8. Image: lean.org Method by Mike Rother, author of TOYOTA KATA

9. THE IMPROVEMENT KATA PATTERN
9
Now
Next
Target
Experiments
Diagram by Tobias Leonhardt

10. THE IMPROVEMENT KATA PATTERN
Current
Condition
Target
Condition
Experiments
Diagram by Tobias Leonhardt
1
2 34

11. Example: Getting Fit

12. Direction/Challenge:
Enough daily exercise to stay fit and happy
Eat healthy food
Get enough rest and switch – off time

13. Understand the Current Condition:
Kept an exercise diary:
Weekly 2x exercise
Not enough strength training
Little, scattered down time
Traveller’s snacks 

14. Set the Target Condition: Getting Fit
Daily 30 mins exercise
Twice per week strength training
Plan down time for a week ahead
Every day pack healthy snacks

15. Obstacles: Getting Fit
Too tired and hungry at end of the day to
exercise
Hard to keep up motivation for training
…

16. Learner’s A3 Storyboard
Slide credit: Mike Rother

17. 4. PDCA experiments
What is your hypothesis?
Design a quick experiment
What is the expected outcome?
Run the experiment
“quick and light”
What was the actual outcome?
Was it what you expected?
What did you learn?
Time for a new plan!
or
How do I sustain the results?
Points of emphasis
Short iteration cycles Go and see Focus on learning

18. Experiments: Getting Fit
Obstacle: Too tired and hungry at
the end of the day to exercise
Ex1: walk to work in the morning
Ex2: pack a healthy snack and eat at 5pm
before gym
…

19. Coaching KATA to Support Learner
Slide credit: Mike Rother

20. 20
LEARNER
COACH
Five Coaching
Kata Questions
Slide credit: Mike Rother

21. 21
MANAGER
LEARNER
THAT TRADITIONAL TOYOTA ILLUSTRATION
Slide credit: Mike Rother

22. 22
The LEARNER
is here
Coach
(Manager
)
The Coach (Manager) is
dependent on the Learners,
who are close to the action.
The only thing the Coach
can do is set Challenges and
give procedural guidance.
HERE'S WHAT REALLY HAPPENS
It's the reverse of the Toyota illustration!
By Gerd Aulinger
Slide credit: Mike Rother

23. Learner’s Experiments
Slide credit: Mike Rother

24. Five Coaching
Kata Questions
Run Charts
Learner's Storyboard
Obstacles
Parking Lot
PDCA
Cycles
Record
Coaching Cycle
24
Challenge
Current
Condition
Analysis
Target
Condition
Definition
Block
Diagram
COACH
LEARNER
Slide credit: Mike Rother

25. Image and great blog on TOYOTA KATA by Hakan Forss http://bit.ly/1vlgdTk

26. (1) FOLLOW: Start by repeating each
practice routine without modification, so
you can absorb its fundamental pattern.
(2) DETACH: Once the basic patterns get
habitual and you understand the 'why'
behind them, you'll start to adapt them.
HOW LONG DO YOU PRACTICE
STARTER KATA RELIGIOUSLY?
26
(3) FLUENCY: At this stage your
actions become natural. You can
create your own approaches to fit
different circumstances, while sticking
to basic underlying 'why' principles.
Practice doesn't have such discrete stages, but it helps depict your progression
Slide credit: Mike Rother

27. Why is KATA a Management 3.0 Practice?
TOYOTA KATA practice helps create employee
ownership for improvement
The KATA drives experimentation and learning
which is key to managing in complexity

28. andrea@leanadvantage.co.uk
leanadvantage.co.uk