Thoughts and Insights from the Shop Floor
The 2023 Toyota Kata Summit, aka “KataCon9” is coming up fast – officially 14 and 15 March, with a extra breakout sessions on “Day 0” on Monday March 13th. Also the evening of the 13th is the Kata Geek Meetup, a less formal series of short presentations and discussion. Last year (2022) was “Old friends …
Yes – the title isn’t a typo. This goes back to KataCon 4 in Atlanta. Though I had attended all of them, this was the first time I actually spoke at one. My task was to follow Rich Sheridan and share why I thought his message was a powerful one for an audience of Kata …
Continue reading “KataCon4 Keynote: The Meta-Patterns of Innovation”
Key Actions vs. Key (Performance) Indicators Another concept Billy brought out in his presentation was the difference between what he calls “Key Actions” (KA) and “Key Indicators” (KI) – often called Key Performance Indicators (KPI). He actually introduced me (and a couple of other attendees) to the concept the previous evening. (Did I mention that …
Continue reading “KataCon 2020: Billy Taylor on Key Actions”
Continuing my breakdown of Billy Taylor’s opening keynote at KataCon… Key Bullet Points People follow what you do before they follow what you say. If you (as a leader) think you are above the process… Deliberate practice on your practice of leadership. Focus on one thing. Break down your leadership style [into elements]. Practice deliberately …
The first official day of KataCon kicked off with a keynote on deliberate practice by Billy Taylor. I first met Billy back in 2012 when I was doing some work with Goodyear. When I saw him at last year’s KataCon it was like running into an old friend, but that is who Billy Taylor is …
Continue reading “KataCon 2020: Billy Taylor on Deliberate Practice”
In his level-set / coaching demonstration, Steven Kane talked extensively about obscuring the jargon of Toyota Kata to defuse pushback. Tracy Defoe had a separate brief presentation titled “Kata in Secret” – and this has been a topic of discussion in the weekly Cascadia Kata Coaches call that Tracy hosts. The two cases were a …
Continue reading “KataCon 2020: Ninja Kata and Kata in Secret”
This is the first in series of posts I am drafting about what I saw, heard, learned at KataCon6 in Austin. I was originally writing this up in huge chunks, maybe two posts. But when I bounced the “Part 1” draft off Craig Stritar, I got some good advice – there are a lot of …
I’m going to break a rule of blogging and acknowledge I’ve been pretty much offline for quite a while since the last post. But I also want to push through what I started because this all leads to more. ==== My next pages of notes I took at Menlo were about crafting a message for …
The 2018 Toyota Kata summit (KataCon4) ended several weeks ago. During the first three summits, I posted daily updates. This time I didn’t. Since the conference ended, I started a couple of posts trying to summarize but it’s been difficult. Here’s why – Starting last December when I visited Menlo, I’ve been learning and thinking …
One of the main reasons to attend KataCon is to learn from others. While many conferences are an audience listening to keynote presentations, KataCon is more of an annual get-together of a community. Whether you are considering attending for the first time (please do!), or a veteran “Kata Geek,” it is an opportunity to learn …