Episode 24 – From firefighting to flow
/
RSS Feed
Continuous improvement is at the heart of success for scaling organisations. But few organisations have an effective approach to integrate this into their normal business. Instead, they focus on change initiatives and training programmes which are rarely effective. Building on the Lean ideas from Toyota, the “Toyota Kata” give a framework for managing improvement as a continuous process.
This podcast is AI-generated based on material from the “Agile Plays” website and book .
Transcript
If you run a scaling organization, you know, the daily grind often feels less like smooth operations and more like well managing perpetual crisis. You end up relying on heroics, but you know, deep down you need a daily system, something that builds repeatability and moves you beyond that constant firefighting mode.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, today we're taking a deep dive into an operational routine designed specifically to build that sustainable habit of improvement, the Toyota Kata. We'll be pulling key insights from our sources on thinking and uh the agile playbook
and that idea of a repeatable routine is embedded right there in the name. Kata literally means routine or pattern. Okay, so Toyota Kata is really the systematic way to pursue a desired future situation. It uses coordinated human competence and it's focused entirely on developing new effective patterns of thinking and behavior you know within your organization.
I think the most important takeaway for me sort of philosophical bomb is how this completely shifts the definition of daily work. Most companies see work as like management plus improvement where improvement is that periodic extra thing you do if you have time.
Exactly. And the core philosophy here is dramatically different. It's that normal daily management equals process improvement.
Wow.
The two are totally inseparable. If you're managing your processes correctly, you are by definition improving them.
Wait, hang on. So you're saying improvement isn't an event. It's not a project, but it's literally the daily grind. How do you even sell that to a management team that's already, you know, drowning in daily tasks? It sounds like you're just adding complexity.
Well, you're not really adding complexity. You're replacing ineffective complexity with an effective routine. Okay?
And this is essential because, as the agile playbook sources remind us, without that continuous pressure to improve,
teams naturally just optimize their current local way of working, they build up this incredible inertia. And then when you finally need to pivot or change direction,
that inertia just kill fills you. Yeah,
exactly.
So, the Kada provides the engine sort of to overcome that organizational drag. Okay, let's dig into this. How does this routine enhance or maybe correct common mistakes people make when they're trying to apply lean thinking? You know, that focus on flow value eliminating waste muda.
Well, the primary value of KADA is that it forces continuity and rigor which those static lean efforts often lack.
Right?
See, many organizations try to implement lean through these big specialized uh project style efforts or workshops, the big annual Kaizen event, for example.
Yeah, those feel great at the time.
They do, but they're occasional. And once that specialized improvement team disbands,
you should pretty much expect entropy to just erode those gains within months.
You solve a problem, everyone pats themselves on the back, and then six months later, the process has somehow slid right back to where it was. We've all seen that.
We have. And the other probably even more common failure point is relying on the action list.
Uh the checklist. Yes, this is the most used treatment for improvement. An engineer or a manager lists say 20 things they think need fixing and they just systematically work down the list crossing them off.
It feels productive, but it's basically a scatter gun approach and it's actually unscientific and often uh destructive.
Destructive. That seems strong. Why is tackling a checklist of problems fundamentally ineffective? It feels like you're making progress.
Because it treats the process like a collection of static parts rather than a dynamic interconnected system.
Okay.
The moment you implement action item one, let's say you speed up step A by 20%. You have inherently changed the overall flow and the interaction of the entire system.
Ah, so now action item five which was developed under the assumption that step A was slow might actually become counterproductive or even destabilizing because the systems input and output rates have completely shifted.
Ah, I see. You optimize locally but you risk destabilizing globally. You're constantly solving problems based on outdated assumptions because the first fix already changed the environment for the next fix.
Precisely. The sources noted that these action lists generate surprisingly little actual cost or quality improvement and often they just create instability and noise. Lean tells us to eliminate waste. Sure, but it often struggles to give us a continuous strategic direction especially in a complex environment.
Okay, so how does Kata solve this direction problem then? How do we know which way to point the uh improve efforts if not just a list.
It connects the small daily steps to the much larger strategic goal. You know, biological evolution is reactive. It only adapts to immediate pressures, right?
But human organizations, we need a conscious long-term vision, sometimes stretching 50 years or more. Kada provides the framework to connect those daily adaptive steps to that sweeping strategic direction. Adaptation happens on the way to that vision, not just randomly.
So, if the path forward is often kind of fuzzy, we need a routine. that helps us navigate, not just a fixed map that's probably wrong anyway.
Exactly.
What does that core navigation tool look like then? Tell us about this improvement, Kata, the IK.
Okay, so the IK routine, it's built around two primary really inseparable components. First, defining a target state objective and second, rigorously following the PDCA cycle.
Let's focus on the target state first. Why isn't this just, you know, management by objective MBO repackaged? If I set a target like reducing delivery def effects by 50%. Isn't the path still just implementation? Aren't we back to the checklist?
Ah, that's the critical difference. Toyota generally does not begin any improvement effort without defining the state.
The target state describes a desired future situation. Yes, but, and this is crucial, it must be ambitious. Yeah, it has to go beyond the process's current capabilities.
Meaning,
meaning if you know exactly how to reach it step by step, you already in implementation mode, not improvement mode. It must be a challenge that forces you to learn something. Okay, that distinction forces us into a learning mindset from the start. We're actually looking for obstacles, not just executing known steps.
Absolutely. The target state defines the desired situation, the where we want to be. But crucially, it does not define the counter measures or the solutions to get there. That's what the second component is for, the PDCA cycle.
Plan, do, check, act.
Right? Since the target state is beyond what we currently know how to do, the analogy often used is it's beyond the reach of our flashlight. The only way to find the path is through the scientific method. Plan, do, check, act.
And you mentioned earlier every single move is a PDCA cycle. It's like a fractal approach.
Correct. Think of the big challenge, the north star, maybe that 50-year vision. The target state is the next kilometer on that path. The fractal PDCA cycles are the individual footsteps we take, you know, this afternoon to try and reach that kilometer marker. Every micro experiment is a PDCA loop, allowing for continuous structured learning and course correction.
And what's the real goal of that? daily experimentation. Is it simply to execute the plan we made in the peace phase? No. The core intent is learning, not just execution. The goal of PDCA isn't really to see if this works. Because frankly, very few things work exactly as planned first time in a complex system.
The real goal is to find out what will not work as expected. What obstacles did we hit? What did we learn? This generates knowledge about the actual barriers you face and forces continuous learning and adaptation.
That sounds very familiar.
It should. This rigorous approach really echoes what the sources emphasized about agile planning. It's about providing a compass showing the best direction for now rather than pretending you have a fixed detailed map for a journey into the unknown.
Okay, so the improvement ka is the routine for the team to adapt and learn scientifically. That leads us perfectly to the coaching kata, the CK.
If I is the routine for doing improvement, the coaching kata must be the routine for teaching that skill. How does this fit in with agile leadership? management ideas.
Yeah, exactly. The main task, arguably the most important task of exe executives and managers in this system is teaching the improvement kata and they do that through learning by practicing. That is the coaching kata. This is really where the organization develops its human competence for adaptation.
Let's look at that mentor mentee relationship because this sounds like it could flip traditional accountability completely on its head.
It absolutely does or at least it should. The mentor is teaching the routine the pattern of thinking. So the mentee learns it and eventually thinks using the kata instinctively. Now while the mentee is the one responsible for taking the action, the mentor is largely responsible for the results. Wow. And this is key. They achieve this without giving the mentee the solutions.
Wait, hold on. So if the team misses their target state, the leader is the one who gets questioned, not just the team member.
That's right. If the mentee fails or gets stuck, the first question isn't what did the mentee do wrong. It's why was the mentor unable to appropriately guide the mentee's thinking or what support did the mentor fail to provide. This overlap creates a really critical bond and forces the manager to operate as a true teacher and coach, not just an ordergiver or taskmaster.
That structure seems like a powerful mechanism for building autonomy. It directly addresses that crisis of autonomy we see in scaling companies where centralized managers feel they just can't delegate important decisions.
That's the entire point really. The coaching kata facilitates decentralized management. It enables decision-making at the lowest viable level, which again is a key theme from the agile playbook.
Leaders aren't dictating specific solutions from afar. Instead, they're teaching people how to perceive and interpret situations accurately and how to react intelligently using the scientific method, right where the work happens. If leaders are teaching the scientific method, the IK, they're essentially providing the tools for local competent problem solving and to teach effectively. The mentor can't just sit in their office looking at spreadsheets.
absolutely not. The first fundamental action of the CK is go to the gemba. The real place where work happens.
Exactly. The mentor must go to the gamba. The actual place where the work is done to observe the process directly with their own eyes. Going to the gamba isn't just about showing face. It's about combating that organizational distance. Overcoming the natural tendency for executives to manage based solely on highly polished, lagging indicator reports. Yeah, this hands-on observation enables the mentor to ask better questions and appropriately guide the mentees thinking based on the raw details, the reality of the situation.
And we know from the agile playbook's discussions, especially around things like retrospectives, that real learning requires psychological safety. If the goal of PDCA is often to find out what will not work, that implies hitting a lot of obstacles, maybe even failures.
Yes. And the CK provides the protective framework for that. It helps establish an environment where anticipated problems, obstacles, things not going to plan. These are viewed as opportunities for gaining knowledge and developing the process, not as causes for fear or blame.
Okay.
Toyota managers genuinely view anticipated problems that way. The mentor's role is critical here. They make it safe to admit errors, to say, "I don't know," and to figure out the next experiment, the next step forward. It fosters that crucial learning response rather than a defensive fear or blame response.
And to make that coaching dialogue structured and objective, There's a specific physical tool involved, isn't there?
Yes, the A3 document. It's deceptively simple. Just a single sheet of paper, usually A3 size. It's used to support the coaching kata dialogue. It provides a neutral shared focal point for the mentor and mentee.
How does it work?
They use it to review the problem, the target state, the experiments run, the obstacles encountered, the lessons learned, and crucially, the thinking process behind the steps taken toward the target state. It keeps the conversation focused squarely on the data, the evidence, and the method, not on opinions or personal shortcomings.
So, bringing this all together, what does this mean for that scaling organization we started with? We talked about how difficult it is to sustain change and overcome that organizational inertia.
Well, Toyota Kata essentially provides the essential operational routine needed to ensure continuous systematic adaptation. And that's just crucial for succeeding, maybe even surviving in a complex environment. It gives you a rigorous method to move toward a challenging goal by embracing that messy process of constant learning and correction rather than being dragged down by trying to perfect your current likely imperfect state.
So the kata system forces the organization to constantly move, constantly learn, making the entire organization more dynamic. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting for me. Building on all this, we started by looking at how hard it is to sustain change. The agile playbook noted that often teams optimize their current way of working, building up that inertia, making it harder to shift later.
Now, if the kata philosophy holds true that day-to-day management is process improvement and the scientific method PDCA is the only acceptable way to proceed toward an ambitious goal where the path isn't fully known. What fundamental almost universally accepted traditional management practice must you abandon immediately? If you truly want your organization's very nature to be adaptive and continuously improving, if the path must be discovered through learning and experimentation, what happens to the illusion of the comprehensive upfront master plan?
Leave a Reply