Mike Rother sent out an email today pointing out that the Lean Enterprise Institute’s web site now has a Toyota Kata page. I believe this is a significant event for the lean community as a whole, as well as for the LEI. As many of my regular readers know, I have maintained the view that [...]
A great insight from a client today. The target condition at this point is simply to establish some degree of transparency of the current condition on a status board without having to resort to probing questions to elicit what is working, and what is not. The observation was: “We’ll know we are succeeding when we [...]
Coincidently my experience this week ties in nicely to the last post. I have a couple of teams working to develop pull systems through their respective work areas. The conventional approach (I suppose) is a lot of PowerPoint about kanban, some exercises, developing a future state value stream map, then devising an implementation plan. An [...]
The key points addressed today (Day 3) at the Toyota Kata seminar were: The PDCA cycle – small experiments that the “learner” develops to advance toward the target condition. The coaching cycle (or kata) – an introduction to the role of the coach, and how coaching is structured in practice. A fairly brief discussion on [...]
I am taking the Toyota Kata seminar this week in Ann Arbor. There are two programs offered: A one-day classroom overview of the concepts in Toyota Kata. The one-day classroom overview followed by two days of practice on a shop floor, for a total of three days. I am taking the three day version. Impressions [...]
Chapter 4 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership lays out the picture of a company where continuous improvement of operations is the primary focus of the management system. Note here that I said “focus of the management system” rather than “focus of the managers.” I believe there is a crucial difference which I will [...]
Chapter 3 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership is titled “Coach and Develop Others.” Where in Chapter 2 the authors were outlining the individual leader’s responsibility for self-development, now they are describing the environment and the process of supporting and focusing that drive. Rather than just outline the chapter, I want to dig into some [...]
One of the graphics in Bill Costantino’s presentation really struck me, but my thought was out of context so I wanted to make a separate post about it. It was the concept of the “current knowledge threshold” illustrated here: As I interpret it, the red line depicts the “we know how to do this” area. [...]
I am starting to read a review copy (courtesy of McGraw-Hill) of Jeff Liker and Gary Convis’ new book, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. (The hot link goes to my Amazon page.) In the spirit of one-piece-flow, I am to share key thoughts as I go rather than save everything for a thousand word [...]
Mike Rother and Bill Costantino have shared a presentation titled “Toyota Kata Unified Field Theory.” I think it nicely packages a number of concepts in an easy-to-understand flow. I want to expand on a couple of points but first listen to the presentation. (Yes, it has a sound track, to be sure to hit the “Play” [...]