Embedding change with Toyota Kata
Most organisations try and achieve improvement through transformation, rather than through incremental change. Not because a step change is more effective, but because it is easier to focus on one short activity. 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 happen
As we have seen across the Agile Plays, incremental change targeted at the organisation is generally more effective than attempting transformational change, especially in scaling organisations. Lean focusses on this continuous improvement and incremental change approach. But despite this, many organisations attempt a “transformational” approach.
One reason for this is that most organisations lack a process for incremental change. In his book “Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results“, Mike Rother looks at the techniques which Toyota use to embed continuous improvement into their culture. If we can train ourselves to adopt these approaches, he argues, we can make continuous improvement a natural way of working.
Mike Rother talks about these techniques a Kata – a word from martial arts which represents basic approaches which are embedded by continuous practice. He identifies two types of Kata:
- Improvement Kata are the techniques for incremental improvement
- Coaching Kata are coaching techniques for helping people to embed this way of thinking
Improvement Kata
Incremental improvement is based around an improvement cycle such as Deming’s Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA or PDCA). One of the challenges is to ensure that the improvement focusses on a goal.
This is sometimes referred to as “helicopter” thinking. The ability to focus on the detail, but also to switch to a strategic viewpoint. Switching between these two views – close up and strategic – is key to ensuring that you are heading in the right direction.
You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
Mike Rother, Toyota KATA
The Toyota Improvement Kata is a structure for incremental improvement within a clear direction. The steps involved are designed to work incrementally but towards a general improvement goal:
- Create a goal or objective to set a sense of direction
- Understand the current condition
- Set a target condition which you wish to achieve and which forms a step towards the goal
- Conduct a series of experiments to incrementally move towards the target condition
At first glance this appears very straightforward. There are only four steps involved. They may seem obvious, even trivial. The idea of viewing this as a Kata is that although simple, repeating these focussed moves builds experience in the technique.
The focus is not on the strategy and the goal. Toyota Kata are not a method for setting strategic goals. They are an approach to use experiments to achieve those goals.
We do not spend any time discussing whether or not [the goal] is achievable. We do spend a lot of effort trying to move closer to it.
Mike Rother, Toyota KATA
Coaching Kata
The coaching Kata are a set of approaches used by leaders to instil the ideas of the improvement Kata. The coaching practice occurs in the gemba, where the work is done, based on what the leader and the individual observe there.
A traditional approach for managers is to set individuals a set of areas to work on. This might be managed as a set of objectives. The manager sets these and then reviews them after a period of time, perhaps a month or a quarter, to see where progress is made.
However, this “action list” approach is flawed. Remember that in Agile development we value “Responding to change over following a plan” because any static plan is limited. In the same way an action list is based on the assumption that the actions are independent and will not change over time. We haven’t considered that performing an action will change the situation in which we created the list.
The action-item list is by far our most widely used
Mike Rother, Toyota KATA
approach for process improvement…
It is a scattershot approach:
multiple action items are initiated in the hope of hitting something.
The Toyota Kata approach considers that each action may have an impact. Taking an action changes the situation and changes our learning. Therefore we may need to change the next action. So, instead of a static action list, we act in a series of experiments.
The coaching approach therefore revisits the situation and the actions taken with a set of five questions:
- What is the target?
- What is the actual condition?
- What obstacles exist?
- What is the next step?
- When can we review that step?
And then once that step, or experiment, is performed, it is an opportunity to review what did occur against expectations.
Good practices
As an Agile Leader, you may wish to use Toyota Kata as part of your coaching approach. As with any technique, it is important to practice this with your team on a regular basis. This is the idea of a “Kata”.
If using the coaching Kata, you need to approach this with a coaching mindset. You are enabling your team member to learn how to approach continuous improvement. You are not pushing your own agenda.
So you are not looking to advance your goal by giving your team member objectives to push them in your chosen direction. You are coaching them in learning how to head towards a goal. They need to learn to assess the barriers and design the experiments in the Improvement Kata.
I find the Toyota Kata approach fits well into the regular interactions which a leader has with their team. The goal might be a product-focused one (as was originally the intent with Toyota’s approach). Or it might be a personal development goal. Or perhaps triggered by some feedback or practical experience (hence the tight link to the gemba – what is really happening).
Leave a Reply