Toyota Kata Scientific Thinking

Sylvain Landry, PhD, CFPIM
Professor, Logistics and Operations Management Department
Director, Continuous Improvement Consulting and Support
Associate Director, Healthcare Management Hub
HEC Montréal
Bringing Scientific Thinking
to Life
An introduction to Toyota Kata for next-generation business leaders
(and those who would like to be)

© Sylvain Landry, 2022
Tools are important, but limiting ourselves to
adopting and adapting these tools is not sufficient!
We are confusing corrolation with causation!

« We have been trying to add Toyota Production System
practices and principles on top of our existing management
thinking and practice without adjusting that thinking and
practice.
Toyota’s techniques will not work properly, will not generate
continuous improvement and adaptation, without Toyota’s
underlying logic, which lies beyond our view. »
Rother (2010, p. 5)

Tools … the visible part of Lean
Mike Rother looked beyond the
tools and studied what Toyota
managers teach their people,
and how they do it.
A common denominator in
their teaching was learning to
iteratively improve actual
processes, day by day, with
procedural feedback coming
from the coach/manager.

Toyota Kata
Managing People for
Improvement,
Adaptiveness and
Superior Results

What is Kata?
• A kata is a routine that we practice in order to
learn a skill.
• Through ongoing practice, the routine of kata
becomes second nature to the body – executed
with little conscious attention – and is easily
accessible.
• Cycling, driving a car, typing, reading are a few
examples.
• Experienced drivers do not consciously think
about controlling the vehicle, they simply focus
on the road.

p. 123

Mike Rother’s definition of Toyota Kata
• Toyota Kata is not a method to implement but rather a
practice methodology to utilize to help you change
your culture to a culture of continuous improvement.
• Toyota Kata is a means for developing scientific-
thinking skills & mindset, rather than a tool or solution
to be implemented.

Scientific thinking and Deliberate practice
• PLAN
• DO
• CHECK (STUDY)
• ACT (ADJUST)
p. 35

Four Steps of the Improvement Kata
Source: Mike Rother, IK and CK Practice guide

Four Steps of the Improvement Kata
Knowledge Threshold p. 27
1-3 week
sprints

What you learn in one step may
influence what you do in the next step
"Let's try it and
see"
Source: Mike Rother

Source: http://nmes4fi.weebly.com/brain-breaks-activiteacutes-de-pause.html

Two modes of thought: "System 1" and "System 2"
• "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional;
• "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more
logical.
Source: Daniel Khaneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Anchor Canada, (2011) 2013.
Source de l’image: https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-science-of-focus-and-how-to-improve-your-attention-span
RED
CONCLUSIONS

https://www.research.ibm.com/urgencyofscience/

The Coaching Kata is
a script to check the
learner’s mindset ; to
hear what they are
learning.
The coach’s role is to
teach the pattern of
the Improvement Kata
to the learner. It is not
to achieve the results.
Julie Simmons

Roles
p. 65

Roles
• Learner
• Uses Improvement Kata; capture the current condition, set the next target condition, and
work with the team to reach it through PDCA cycles under the coach’s supervision.
• Is responsible for updating the storyboard.
• Coach
• Ensures that the Learner uses Improvement Kata (scientific thinking)
• Performs (ideally on a daily basis) coaching cycles with the Learner using the 5
questions of the Coaching Kata.
• Develops the Learner’s scientific-thinking skills; does not improve the process.
• Is responsible for the results of the Learner.
• Is often the supervisor of the Learner.
• Second Coach
• Observes the coaching cycles (Coaching Kata) between the Learner and the Coach.
• Helps the Coach develop his/her coaching skills.
• Is often the supervisor of the Coach, can also be a peer or a specialist.
• Is not always present.

Five Coaching Kata Questions

Coach
Learner
Second Coach

But won’t repetition kill creativity?
• Structured practice techniques, or Starter Kata, are designed to
unleash the freedom to create.
• As Clear (2018) puts it: “Habits do not restrict freedom. They
create it.”
• Once you internalize its fundamentals, scientific thinking is
creative thinking (Rother, 2018). Starter Kata are about
practicing and internalizing fundamentals so you can then build
on them in your own way.

« It’s not about the questions
themselves but the skills and
mindset they leave behind »
Mike Rother

Starter Kata
Starter Kata are a kind of scaffolding - a
temporary structure to support something
until it can stand on its own - that assist
you and your team in growing scientific-
thinking capability.
p. 128

Toyota kata is
« content-free »
• Beth Carrington, Master Kata Coach

• The time-boxed sprints embody the next target condition and
the daily scrums are used like the Kata Coaching cycles to keep
track of progress.
• Generally speaking however, the scrum master’s main priority is
to make progress. Contrary to the Kata coach, the scrum
master may have little to do with people development.
• This is an example area where Toyota Kata can influence Agile
practice. As Boeg (2019) points out, you need Toyota Kata
when the scrum master does not take responsibility for
coaching and guiding the team.
Toyota Kata can dovetail nicely with Agile.

“What’s the organizational
equivalent of breathing?”

“Scientific Thinking!”

What is Kata?
p. 127

and think

We don’t know what the future will be, and we don’t know the
obstacles we will one day have to overcome. The success of
our organizations does not depend so much on the solutions
put in place at any given moment, but on our ability to
continually learn through action in a constantly changing
environment.
– MIKE ROTHER

The management methods we’ve been practicing over
the last few decades were arguably intended to reduce
uncertainty, but the management methods of the future
may be as much about being effective and comfortable
working within unavoidable uncertainty.
– MIKE ROTHER

www.editionsjfd/bsttl

Toyota Kata Scientific Thinking

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