M4E #90: What is Toyota Kata
Hi to everyone! I missed last week content due to personal matters but here we are again! Today we will learn about Toyota Katas and why they are useful for continuous improvement processes. Let’s see what LeanVlog can tell about it in this video.
Time for Insights
Toyota Kata is a management and improvement approach developed from Toyota's practices and popularized by Mike Rother in his book Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness, and Superior Results (2009). As told in the video, it focuses on two primary types of routines: the Improvement Kata and the Coaching Kata. These routines help organizations create a culture of continuous improvement, learning, and problem-solving.
The name Toyota Kata comes from the Japanese word kata, which refers to a structured routine or pattern often used in martial arts or other traditional practices to develop skill through repetition. In martial arts, a kata is a series of movements practiced repeatedly to master a technique, creating muscle memory and automatic response. Similarly, in the Toyota Kata approach, employees and leaders follow structured routines—the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata—to internalize the behaviors and thought processes required for effective problem-solving and improvement.
Thjs idea is also applied to the world of software development. Software katas are a concept borrowed from the martial arts tradition of kata, much like Toyota Kata, but applied specifically to the craft of software development. A software kata is a practice exercise or coding challenge designed to help developers improve their skills through repetition and deliberate practice. Just as a martial artist repeats a series of movements to develop muscle memory and technique, software developers work on coding katas to refine their coding habits, enhance problem-solving skills, and master software design principles.