3.

Kata Creates
Culture
5.
The TK
Starter Kata

Value Stream Mapping

Supporting Materials

Extras

1.
Improvement Kata

Challenge

2.
Coaching
Kata

4.
Getting
Started

TOYOTA
KATA

The
Improvement
Kata Exercise

The Improvement Kata + Starter

Kata
 

A four-step model of scientific thinking, with practice routines

Today's prescriptions probably won’t fit tomorrow's problems, and the path to a
challenging goal can’t be determined in advance anyway. Your best bet is to
practice

a universal means of developing your own solutions (a “meta skill” for any
situation).

That’s what you learn by practicing the Improvement Kata.

When conditions are complex and dynamic, scientific thinking may be the best

approach we have for navigating. Scientific thinking means knowing that any
idea

should be tested. It means learning to compare what you think (theory) with
what

actually happens (evidence), and adjusting based on what you discover from
the

difference. It’s a way of thinking that makes us better at reaching difficult goals

through unpredictable territory.

However, scientific thinking is not our natural, default
mode. What normally happens is that our brain
quickly and unconsciously jumps to conclusions.
Scientific thinking is not difficult, it’s just not our habit.

Adults learn scientific thinking through practice. There are simple “Starter Kata”
practice
routines for each step of the Improvement Kata, and for coaching, which speed
up your

learning and make it easier to scale in teams and organizations. The

Improvement Kata

models a pattern of practical, everyday scientific thinking, and the

Starter Kata are what you practice to develop the thinking.

Instructions for the Starter Kata are in the Toyota Kata Practice Guide.
 Next:  2. The Coaching Kata >>

"If you go through the Improvement Kata process

you'll get to where you need to get to.  And the
more times you do it the better you will get at it."
     ~ Jim Huntzinger, President, Lean Frontiers
"Go where there is no path
and leave a trail."   ~ Emerson
Excerpt from:  Ichijo, Kazuo and Nonaka, Ikujiro, Knowledge Creation and
Management:  New Challenges for Managers, Oxford University Press, 2006, page
25.

Learning to Learn
Knowledge assets are not just the knowledge already created, such as know-
how, patents, technologies, or brands, but also include the knowledge to create
knowledge, such as the organizational capability to innovate.  Although current
views on knowledge assets tend to focus on the former because they are easier to
measure and deal with, it is the latter that need more attention because they are
the source of new knowledge to be created, and therefore a source of the future
value of the firm.

One of the most important knowledge assets for a firm is a firm-

specific kata (roughly, "pattern" or "Way of doing things") of dialogues and
practices.  Nelson and Winter (1982) emphasize the importance of routines for
the firm's evolutionary process.  Here, we focus on "creative routines" of kata,
which make knowledge creation possible by fostering creativity and preserving
efficiency.
Improvement Kata Poster
(click image for a pdf)
You can start practicing one Starter Kata today:

1. ★ You’re a manager who needs to run a meeting and are wondering

how to best do that.

2. ★ You would like to add useful (and marketable) skills to your personal
portfolio.

3. ★ You’re an educator who wants to help students practice critical-

thinking STEM skills.

4. ★ You want to empower your teams.

5. ★ You’re curious about the Improvement Kata.

6. ★ You want to develop the necessary mindset to use Lean techniques.

7. ★ Your new business is growing and you need a management system.

Take a first mini step today. Print out the Improvement Kata poster and get a
few five

question cards. Read through the questions on the card, in the order shown,
with your
team, in meetings, etc. You’ll be adding scientific-thinking focus and flow to any
meeting.
Five-Question Card
(click the card, or get preprinted cards here)

Click to read about

the TK research
and findings
The Coaching Kata
3.
Kata Creates
Culture
5.
The TK
Starter Kata

Value Stream Mapping

Supporting Materials

Extras

1.
Improvement Kata

Challenge

2.
Coaching
Kata

4.
Getting
Started

TOYOTA
KATA
The
Improvement
Kata Exercise

Click on the card for a print template -->

or get pre-printed cards here.

It’s a Starter Kata for the coach.

This 5-minute video  -->
summarizes the interaction
between the coach and the
learner. Improvement,
adaptiveness, creativity, and
innovation are something you
can practice in daily work.
This 5-minute video  -->

shows you the basic

coaching cycle headings,
which are a Starter Kata
for the Coach.
Without coaching a learner may not practice the right
pattern, or practice ineffectively. Without coaching, a
change in our brain’s wiring is less likely to occur. But coaching is a skill like any
other, that takes practice. The
Coaching Kata helps you develop skill in supporting
learners as they practice the Improvement Kata.

The Coaching Kata is practiced by managers, supervisors

and team leaders who want to coach their people in a
 scientific way of thinking and acting. Instructions for the Coaching Kata are in
the Toyota Kata Practice Guide.
How to practice coaching the Improvement Kata pattern

Coach
Learner
Coaching cycles - Just 20 minutes a day

• Reinforces the pattern of the Improvement Kata.

• Helps make the learner’s current thinking apparent, so

1. the coach can give appropriate feedback as necessary.

One coaching cycle involves the coach asking the five

Coaching Kata questions of the learner, who refers to their

IK storyboard. This is done once per day at a scheduled time,

plus as the need arises, taking 20 minutes or less each time.

The five questions are the main headings in the coaching cycle dialog, and going
through them has two main purposes:
"Excellence is not an act,
but a habit."  ~ Aristotle

Practicing Kata
Modifies Culture
 
1-minute video: Learning new skills
Next:  4. How to Get Started >>

How do you develop a team or organization

culture of improvement, adaptiveness, and
innovation? How do you scale up? By

adding practice of Starter Kata to normal

daily work, with managers as coaches!

Brain research is clear:  Developing new ways of thinking means practicing

targeted behaviors daily. The implication is that practice and coaching should

be integrated into the normal daily operation of a team or organization. The

Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata are exactly that – an ongoing, sustained

process to develop useful scientific skills and mindset, through the work itself.
Something you should know about the brain

Brain scientists like to say, “Anytime you do something you’re

more likely to do it again.” In other words, thoughts and

behaviors that we repeat, intentionally or unintentionally,

can get woven into the neural structures of our brain.

Whatever we focus on and repeatedly do with enthusiasm

tends to become a reflexive way of thinking and acting

– our mindset and habits. In this way your current team or

organizational culture reinforces and perpetuates itself daily.

This is where practicing Starter Kata comes in. As we know
from sports & music, with the following ingredients we can
break the cycle and develop new skills and habits to replace
some old ones:  (1) structured routines for beginners to
practice, (2) frequent repetition, (3) feedback from a coach to
correct our practice, and (4) optimism and enthusiasm from
feeling that we’re overcoming obstacles and making progress.
The role of managers in this: Managing through coaching
Managers are teachers by default, and the primary actors on the ground who
create

and perpetuate an organization’s culture. They create the creators. If you’re a

manager, supervisor or team leader you’re teaching your people a way of

thinking,

whether you realize it or not.

Toyota Kata shows managers how to teach their people a scientific way of
thinking,

through deliberate practice in the course of everyday work. This empowers

people

to be knowledge workers – enabling teams to develop solutions in an iterative,

scientific way, quickly and closer to the action. This, in turn, enables an
organization

to better navigate through complex and dynamic terrain, again and again.

The more you and your team develop skill

and confidence in a scientific-thinking pattern:

▪ The more you can empower people

▪ The bigger the challenges you can take on

▪ The more knowledge you can build

▪ The faster your organization can move ahead

How to Get Going
3.
Kata Creates
Culture
5.
The TK
Starter Kata

Value Stream Mapping

Supporting Materials

Extras

1.
Improvement Kata

Challenge

2.
Coaching
Kata

4.
Getting
Started

TOYOTA
KATA
The
Improvement
Kata Exercise

In practicing new skills it’s a good idea to begin with a simple approach that doesn’t
overwhelm people. Get a few persons or a small team working with the four-step
Improvement Kata pattern, gain some experience, and build on what you learn.
This page has suggestions for how to do that, based on experience.

• Read this introductory article. -->

I: Read about it with your team

Note:
This video uses the
acronym “PDCA”
(plan-do-check-act),
and the phrase “PDCA
cycles,” which is Lean
community terminology
for “experimenting.”
II: Do the 1-hour Improvement Kata exercise  (menu button on this site)
The Improvement Kata exercise (also called
“Kata in the Classroom”) is a compact, fun,
hands-on way to introduce the four steps of
the Improvement Kata. Anyone can run

this exercise, and everything you need

is on the [Link] website.

The IK exercise involves teams working on

a number of self-generated iterations to
complete a small puzzle. The teams follow
the Improvement Kata pattern to establish
a goal and then experiment toward it from
round to round. The purpose of the exercise is to introduce the four steps of the
Improvement Kata, and the scientific-thinking mindset that ideas should be tested,
in an experiential way.
The IK exercise works best with three teams or more. A good team size is 5 persons
per team, although a team can be as small as three people. So a minimum number
of participants is nine. The easy-to-run IK exercise is an excellent step in learning
about the Improvement Kata, and you will probably use it again and again.

Start by familiarizing yourself with the Improvement Kata / Coaching Kata

topic.
Here are three things you and your team can easily do yourselves:
Then start practicing the Starter Kata in coach/learner pairs.

Chapter 4 in the Toyota Kata Practice Guide explains how

to organize your initial practice. There are six Starter Kata
for the learner and two for the coach, as shown in the
downloadable reference sheets on the “Supporting Materials”
page of this website.

Instructions for each Starter Kata are in Part II and Part III of the
Toyota Kata Practice Guide. Practice the Starter Kata exactly as
prescribed at first. Resist the natural temptation to deviate from
them too soon just because practicing them feels awkward. That
stiff, unnatural feeling is a normal part of doing anything new, and actually means
you are on the learning path. In a short time it should get easier and more fluid,
and then you can start to develop your own style – building on the patterns you
learned from the Starter Kata.

Keep in mind that you are not testing to see if the Improvement Kata pattern works,
but how to make it work in your setting. Since every team or organization is different
you should adjust and scale up as you learn, rather than based on preconceived
ideas about how you think it will go.

You might also decide to bring in some outside coaching support to help you at the
beginning. This could be another IK/CK practitioner from your region or one of the
hundreds of IK/CK-experienced consultants and advisors around the world.
Improvement Kata Poster
(click image to download pdf)
Five-Question Card
(click the card, or get pre-printed cards here)
Next:  5. The TK Starter Kata >>
III: Print out the Improvement Kata poster + some
five-question cards and start using them in meetings.
This is a simple first step. Anyone interested in the Toyota Kata
topic should have at least these two items. The five questions
are an easy-to-learn Starter Kata, and each time you go through
them it reinforces a scientific thinking pattern. Practice a ritual of
referring to the five-question card in meetings, to bring scientific-
thinking values into your discussions.
• Read through buttons 1-5 of this website.

• Read Part I of the Toyota Kata Practice Guide.

• Watch this 10-minute video explaining the Improvement Kata: