Kata are choreographed patterns of movements practiced repetitively to develop natural reflexes. They are commonly used in Japanese theater and martial arts. Toyota Kata involves continuous improvement toward a target condition through small steps using the PDCA cycle. It also includes coaching kata where everyone mentors and is mentored to learn through doing without fixed solutions. This develops an organizational culture of continuous learning and blameless problem solving.

1. KATA
Choreographed patterns of movements
Practiced in a repetitive manner to develop natural reflexes (memory muscle)
Commonly used in Japanese theater and martial arts.

2. Before we start let me tell you a modern day story of Kata in action….
In 2013 Bethany Macri from Etsy gave an excellent talk at Devopsdays NYC
At 27:40 in the presentation she was asked a question form the audience..
where she didn’t understand the question…

3. I have no idea
how to answer
that question. It
would literally
never occur to me
not to do it!
The question was “how do we ensure action items in the post mortem actually get done”
!

4. We are what we repeatedly
do. Excellence, then, is not an
act, but a habit.
!
Aristotle
Kata is where the things we want our org to be (our vision) are autonomic …
!

5. Everyone who knows me knows I have been an Etsy fanboy on how they run IT for a while.
Over three years I heard story after story of excellent Etsy patterns.
This is now what I call Etsy Kata
!

6. However, this story is not about Etsy Kata..
It’s about Toyota Kata
Described in Make Rother’s book
Etsy Kata is about 10 years old
where Toyota Kata you could say is about 90 years old.
!

7. When asked about
stolen design
plans.
!
“We improve our
process everyday. By
the time the thieves
produce the machine
we will have advanced
well beyond that
point”
Founder of Toyota Mother Corporation

8. When asked about
American
companies copying
his process.
!
“They can copy our
process but not
our culture”
Taiichi Ohno founder of TPS and what we call Lean was once asked.

9. Toyota is not a story about
techniques. It’s an organization
defined primarily by the unique
behavior routines it continually
teaches to all it’s members.
!
Mike Rother (Page 262-263)

10. Culture
Behavior
Habit
Autonomic
!
( Invisible )
KATA
Kata is…
Rother points out in his book that this is what most analysis of TPS and Lean miss.
His original title of his book was supposed to be “Beyond Seeing”.

11. !
Scientific Method
Depersonalized
Non-Blameful
Non Deterministic
!
( Visible )
KATA
Kata is also…

12. “Dude … It all
starts with
Deming”
!
Ben Rockwood
I’d be remise to not mention Deming at this point…
Deming was unquestionably & unarguable the Shakespeare of management thinking in Japan in the second half of the 20th century….

13. Deming’s Influence
PDCA is a core concept in Toyota Kata
Deming introduced statistics into Management (variation, control charts)
Deming was a strong advocate for Team and systems thinking…
is really the father of blamelessness…

14. Toyota Kata
Rother breaks Toyota Kata it down into improvement kata and couching kata…

15. You’re always working towards the vision (True North)
1 the challenge
2 What’s the target condition
3 Next target condition
4 iterate… PDCA…

16. The grey zone… is uncertain… not deterministic…
Checklist don’t work….
Bethany didn’t have a checklist for remembering on follow up PM actions.

17. Coaching Kata
Everyone at Toyota is a mentor and a mentee
The mentee has to climb him or herself
Solutions that are not solved by the menthe are not rewarded.
Learning by Doing is a core concept at Toyota…

18. Coaches do not solve problems even if it’s the better one.
A fixed problem without learning is not a fixed problem.

19. How many ppl have heard of an andon chord?
At one point Toyota had an average of 1000 pulls per shift
At some point it went down to 700 pulls.
You would think they would break out the champaign.
In this case the president called an all hands.
Must be something wrong.
We either A. have more defects getting buy or B) we need to improve enough.

20. John Willis
@botchagalue
References and Credits:
https://dzone.com/articles/code-kata
https://vimeo.com/77206751
http://hacknjill.com/blog/hacksgiving-is-the-best-giving/
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrother/Homepage.html
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deming_PDCA_cycle.PNG
http://www.slideshare.net/optimaltransformation/collection-of-quotes-46951559
http://techranchaustin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/kata.png
!
!
!
!
How many ppl have heard of an andon chord?
1000 per shift
went down to 700 at some point.
You would think they would break out the champaign.
In this case the president called an all hands.
Must be something wrong.
We either A. have more defects getting buy or b) we need to improve more.