Toyota Kata by Mike Rother

I had a “slow start” when reading this book, but I find it pretty interesting if one would consider software (or more generic the entire IT spectrum) the point of view of looking at the issues and how to solve them. The book, as the name implies, is focussed on the Toyota manufacturing process, but its ideas and best-practices can be applied to mostly everything. I think this is a great book considering how to approach improvements in daily work routine, especially if we ignore its strong focus on the “Toyota way of manufacturing”.

I’ll jot down some ideas from the book, or things that looked eye-opening:

• principles are developed from repeated actions
• there are 2 types of kata: improvement and coaching
• the goal of creating (item) lists is to learn from past issues and not make an action plan to fix them now
  • try changing a thing at a time and see if the outcome is the desired one or not, see cause and effect not a continuous back-and-forth of juggling issues
• Toyota way of thinking equates daily mangement = process improvement
• Optimizing parts of the system doesn’t always implies that we’re optimizing the entire system
• The kata emphasizes continuous improvement of processes and continuous analysis of existing problems, these include continuous adaptation
  • Vision might also mean that we’ll set goals that aren’t currently achievable
  • Always strive to achieve an ideal situation, but do it in small steps by changing one thing at a time
• Pull/kanban system is used to get for each process what’s needed, we also regulate at the distribution the inventory
  • Customer dictates the rhythm and not the schedule
  • Produce what’s needed when it’s needed and survive by continuous improvement
  • Kanban is just another tool/process to determine what are the problems and how to get to a 1x1 flow
• When defining the next target condition to be achieved assume that the path can be unclear
  • always try to have small rapid steps of improvement
• PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act and Go See)
  • first learn and analyze as much as possible about the current process and way of doing things
  • try to fix the problems as they happen as you get better insights into the causes, and not by later looking at the paper trail
• coaching kata
  • the mentee is expected to make small mistakes while learning
  • first hand experience and evaluation of the problems is VITAL in learning
  • classroom behavior won’t change people behavior
    • we might get awareness through trainings but not long-lasting changes
  • kata are for practicing behaviors
  • start initially w/ some processes to improve - as the kata is a never-ending, always-evolving process
• final part presents some hands-on examples on what kind of metrics to look for and some small guides on how to analyze some (kata) metrics

As usual, you can find the book on Amazon or Goodreads, if you’re looking for more information or a place to grab a copy.