toyota-kata.md

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A summary of the book Toyota Kata by Mike Rother.

My thoughts: this is a poor summary of the book. The real gem is in the various examples of the kata in action.

• Continuous improvement: the ability to move toward a new desired state through an unclear and unpredictable territory by being sensitive to and responding to actual conditions on the ground. If someone claims certainty about the steps that will be implemented to reach a desired destination, that should be a red flag to us. Uncertainty is normal. True certainty does not lie in preconceived implementation steps or solutions, but in understanding the logic and method for how to proceed through unclear territory.
• If the same problems arise each week and people work around them, things are standing still - there is no progress / improvement.
• Determine where you want to go, then figure out how to get there within financial and other constraints. Do not let financial calculations alone determine your directions, because then the organization becomes inward-looking rather than adaptive; it oscillates on a case-by-case basis rather than striving towards something and it seeks to find and implement ready solutions rather than developing new smart solutions.
• GM relied on rate of return analysis to determine choices made. In other words, make money becomes the guiding vision / overall direction for further development of the business. We were now not moving in a particular direction but rather judging and selecting options independently based on rate of return.
• Toyota's approach is to get people to work systematically and creatively at the detail level to do what's necessary to achieve ambitious target conditions, which at first pass may not make it through a rate of return calculation.
• Using ROI to evaluate individual decisions / steps likely results in suboptimization. According to systems theory, trying to maximize the individual parts of something reduces the effectiveness of the whole.
• People in an organization act rationally to maximize their success. Putting the emphasis on departmental output maximization rather than on optimizing overall flow for the customer means that the natural interests of the departmental manager may come into conflict with long term survival interests of the company. In the long run, overall costs will be higher and organization will become so involved in firefighting that it's standing still, even though the departmental manager is meeting and even exceeding his / her objectives.
• Traditional thinking vs. Target Condition thinking. Examples:
  • We're slipping back vs. We aren't there yet.
  • We need to maintain vs. What is preventing us from reaching the target condition?
  • The operators are responsible vs. Management is responsible.
  • We need more discipline! vs. What is the next step?
• Sweeping little problems under the rug or placing blame both inhibit the ability to see reality and adapt to actual conditions. When you combine hiding problems with the popular idea of trying to manage from afar via targets and managerial accounting metrics, it means even less accurate information gets through to managers, who fail to lead in making small course corrections or do it too late.
• The 5 questions in PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) cycle:
  • 1. What is the target condition?
  • 2. What is the actual condition now?
  • 3. What obstacles are now preventing you from reaching the target condition? Which one are you addressing now?
  • 4. What is your next step? (Start of next PDCA cycle)
  • 5. When can we go and see what we have learnt from taking that step?
• Toyota's success is about behavior routines. If you want to emulate Toyota, then changing people's behavior patterns is the task. This is a different undertaking than trying to implement tools, techniques or introduce a series of principles.
• A leader using the improvement kata does not need to know the solution to a proble. In fact it is detrimental for the development of people in the organization if they are given solutions by leaders. What the leader needs to know is how people should go about understanding and developing solutions. The leaders hould have first hand experience with the improvement kata pattern and how to guide people through it so they learn.
• If we want our organization to be adaptive and continuously improving, we should develop ways of maintaining more focus on the details of the real situation in real time. Toyota's improvement kata does this well.
• We learn habits, automatic reaction by repeatedly practicing behaviors. In order to build new mental circuits, we must practice a desired behavior pattern and periodically derive a sense of achievement from that behavior. Much of what we do is routinized and habitual. Repeated practice - conditioning - creates neural pathways and, over time, an organization's culture.