Track: Game changing methods and practices / Time: Monday 15:50 - 16:40 / Location: Amalienborg

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

 

You have been doing agile for a few years now. With a regular cadence you have retrospectives and a lot of problems and great improvement opportunities are raised but you don't seem to really improve. Let us put your retrospectives on steroids. Start using Toyota Kata! 

 

Building on the power of habits, Toyota Kata will help you build a daily continuous learning and improvement culture, a kaizen culture.

 

In this session, you will be introduced to the two main Kata* of the Toyota Kata, the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata. You will learn how the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata can become your “muscle memory” for continuous learning and improvements in your organization. These daily habits or routines will help you to strive towards your state of awesomeness in small experiments focused on learning. The Improvement Kata will form the habits of doing small daily experiments focused on learning and improving. The Coaching Kata will form the habits of the agile leaders for creating a culture of continuous improvement, adaption,

and innovation. 

 

In this session, Toyota Kata will be taken out of the manufacturing context and put it into the knowledge work context. You will learn how you can start applying the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata in a software development context as a compliment or a replacement of the agile retrospective. 

 

Time to stop collecting problems and start forming new habits of learning and improving! 

 

(*) Kata means pattern, routine, habits or way of doing things. Kata is about creating a fast “muscle memory” of how to take action instantaneously in a situation without having to go through a slower logical procedure. A Kata is something that you practice over and over striving for perfection. If the Kata itself is relative static, the content of the Kata, as we execute it is modified based on the situation and context in real-time as it happens. A Kata as different from a routine in that it contains a continuous self-renewal process. 

Learning Outcomes:

• How Toyota Kata can become the catalyst for creating a culture of continuous learning and improvement, a kaizen culture. 
• How Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata can become your “muscle memory” for continuous learning and improvements in your organization.  
• How the Coaching Kata will form the habits of the agile leaders of the organization to help the learners learn and improve.  
• How Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata can become a compliment or a replacement of the agile retrospective.  
• How small daily experiments lower the resistance to change and builds a kaizen culture.  
• How to use the great power of habits to build a new culture.  
• How to apply the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata in a software development context