Toyota kata for continuous improvement

CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT IN
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
Sudipta Lahiri, Digite05-12-2015
1

@sudiptal #AgileNoida2015
Sudipta Lahiri (Sudi)
slahiri@digite.com, lahiri.sudipta@gmail.com
• Senior Vice President, Digité
• Agile/Lean practitioner (75%)
• Lean Transformation of our own team
• Developed SwiftKanban (www.swiftkanban.com), SwiftALM
(www.digite.com)
• Licensed user base of over 300,000
• Agile Coach (25%)
• Train and coach teams/organizations in Lean/Agile
• Run the LimitedWIP Societies in India
My Background
06-06-15

Why this session?
05-12-2015
3
 Are we missing the point?
 Should we have a different perspective?
 Are we really happy with how Agile teams
have performed so far?
 Have the retrospectives delivered the results
we were told they will deliver?

Toyota: unparalleled success
05-12-2015
4
 Toyota is one of the most open organizations
 There are many known practices that are widely
adopted and followed
 Andon, Kanban, Jidoka, Heijunka...
 There is so much talk about ‘Continuous
Improvement’
 A3 sheets, others...
 Yet, the success of Toyota rarely been replicated...
why?
 Even within Japanese companies
:
:
 It all comes down to Toyota’s key values!

Toyota’s value
 It values organization’s routines for
improvement and adaptation for competitive
advantage and long term success
 Not quantitative/financial targets
“ Toyota has long considered its ability to
permanently resolve problems and then
improve stable processes as one of the
company’s competitive advantages.
- Kathi Hanley, Toyota”
05-12-2015
5

We aren’t the best “copy cats”!
 Teams need to be adapt and continuously
improve
 External and internal environments are changing
continuously; you can’t predict how they will
develop
 We jump to “implementation”... we jump to
methodologies... we jump to certifications!
 We copy what we see...
Practices and Principles
Management thinking
and routines
(Visible)
(Invisible)
Picture from Mike Rother’s book “Toyota Kata”
 ... forgetting that some of
these practices and
principles were a response
to their issues, their
problems
05-12-2015
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What do we mean from continuous
improvement and adaptation?
 Small incremental steps, adjusting along the
way, continuously
 Relying on periodic retrospectives assumes a
system that is “temporarily” static
 Standards that don’t keep continuously improving
bring down system performance because system
characteristics keep changing
We are
here
We want
to be
here
Picture from Mike Rother’s book “Toyota Kata” 05-12-2015
7

Quality of a product does not necessarily
mean high quality. It means continual
improvement of the process, so that the
consumer may depend on the uniformity of
a product and purchase it at a low cost.
- W. Edwards Deming, 1980
05-12-
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Kata means “routine”
 ... routines that help its people continuously
improve and evolve... systematically, not as a
special initiative
 A way of keeping 2 things in alignment,
synchronized with each other
 One: The system
 Two: The continuously changing environment
 We don’t control the environments around us but
we can control how to manage them
 Kata is not a technique, not a principle
 It’s much deeper.... it’s part of work, everyday
05-12-2015
9
http://www.another-reality.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Experiment.gif

Two fundamental “Kata”
routines
 Improvement Kata
 A routine that helps you to improve, adapt and
evolve
 Coaching Kata
 A routine that makes the experienced leaders and
managers teach the Improvement Kata to
everyone
Coachin
g
Kata
Improveme
nt
Kata
Images from:
http://www.memrise.com/user/dominici/
http://imgbuddy.com/cartoon-people-standing-
up.asp
http://getafteritsales.com/the-importance-of-05-12-2015
10

It does not happen with...
 Workshops or Classroom sessions
 Action Item Lists
 Value Stream Mapping helps but...
http://www.slideshare.net/KarenMartinGroup/value-stream-mapping-in-officeservice-joint-webinar-with-igrafx
Improvement
Kata at this
level
05-12-2015
11

What happens in retrospectives?
 Best case scenario:
 We get a “scattered” set of improvements
 These are not generally directed in any specific direction (vision)
 Without a vision, once you address these improvements, you will
get a static system
 You can’t predict the outcome!
 In the most common scenario:
 Action items don’t get closed; over time, team loses faith and the
quality of feedback drops
 Often, too many items and too many “organizational” items
 Freshers, attrition, requirements are not well defined, etc.
 Rarely, problems within the team, within the team members are
identified!
 Rarely, a 5Why analysis to get to “real” Root Cause
05-12-2015
12

You must have a “vision”...
 Is “Lean” = “Waste Management”?
 Yes but... we focus on wastes in silos (system thinking is missing)
 Defining a vision gives a direction for the “system” to think in one
direction
 Mike Rother’s definition of “Continuous Improvement and
Adaptation”
 “Moving towards a desired state through an unclear territory by being
sensitive and responding to actual changes on the ground”
 Alvin Toffler’s says”
 You have got to think about big things while you are doing small things,
so that all the small things go in the right direction
We are
here
Vision
eg:
0 defects
CSAT>X
%
ESAT>Y05-12-2015
13

... but Vision is just a Direction
giver!
 Nothing more!
 Utilize these “next steps” to manage the team/people
 However, as you move from point to the next, you will get
“Obstacles”
 Either avoid them and move off from your vision OR
 Work through it by understanding it and addressing its root cause(s)
We are
here
Vision eg:
0 defects
CSAT>X%
ESAT>Y%
Define the
next step:
Specific and
detailed
Define
the next
step...
Define
the
next
step...
Define
the next
step...
05-12-2015
14

So, lets establish the “Next
Step”...
 Out intent must be to establish a work “pattern”
 Without a pattern, you cannot identify where to
improve...
 Without a pattern, you are not certain how to
react to OR how the system would react to when
you change something
We are
here
Vision eg:
0 defects
CSAT>X%
ESAT>Y%Patter
n
Patter
n
Patter
n
Patter
n
05-12-2015
15

To set a working pattern...
 Without a pattern, every day is a different day!
 Many of the TPS principles are to establish a
pattern
 Heijunka, Kanban, 1*1 flow
 Initially, work will not fit to the pattern...
 You will get almost always get obstacles...
 Resolve them and continuously improve
 When people say, its not working for us...
 You got it! Nail that problem
 All these methods are used to see the problems
and obstacles
05-12-2015
16

Kanban as a method for “Continuous
Improvement”
 Visible intent: produce only what we need
 Invisible intent: support process improvement
to provide a target condition by defining a
relationship between stages of the value
stream
 In push systems, you dump work to downstream;
rest is his problem!
05-12-2015
17

The purpose of Kanban is to eliminate
Kanban!
http://www.vijaywebsolutions.com/what-is-a-backend-developer/
Eliminate the supermarket...
- But don’t do it too fast!
Use Kanban to define the “next stage” of
improvement journey
There is no point in seeing the same thing what
you are doing today! There is no improvement...
05-12-
18

Target condition ≠ Target
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 Target condition (pattern) depersonalizes and aligns the
corrective actions
 Target condition points towards a process improvement;
target points towards numbers!
 You can get the numbers by cheating the system but you can’t
game improvement
 If you push for targets without process improvement, the system
will break down!
 When you have high WIP, that reflects a scope for process
improvement
 Target condition should be something that is distant AND you
don’t know how to get there
 It shouldn’t be easy enough that we know how to get there + it
shouldn’t difficult enough that the team gives up!
 Start with a small simple definition and expand as you go
forward...
 As you face obstacles and resolve, you will be able to refine
better

... how to try and achieve that?
So, you have a Target
Condition...
05-12-
20

Execution to target condition
 Accept that the path is unclear
 “No Problem” = Problem
 Small, incremental and rapid step
 Sometimes in minutes; no detailed plan
 Don’t lose time in trying to get the perfect step; take a
bandaid step to see farther
 This is where PDCA comes in
 With single-factor experiments, not necessarily the
biggest problem
 Not this... ... but this...
http://zarboleanhealthcare.blogspot.in/
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-building-teamwork-image23767024 05-12-2015
21

Summary: 5 questions for
Improvement Kata...
 What is the target
condition (the challenge)?
 What is the actual
condition now?
 What obstacles are
preventing you from
reaching the target
condition? Which one are
you addressing now?
 What is your next step
(starting PDCA)?
 When can we go and see
what we have learnt from
the next step?
05-12-
22

Retrospectives vs Kata
 Focus: Stop/fix the
problem
 Typical Behaviour:
 Hide the problem
 Quickly move into
corrective action
 Apply several
corrective actions at
once
 Focus: Learn about
the work system
 Understand the
situation
 Typical Behaviour:
 Observe and study
the situation
 Apply 1 corrective
action at a time to see
cause and effect
Retrospectives Kata
05-12-
23

Don’t mess it with “metrics”
The manager relies on signals that he or she
assumes are good results measures. In fact,
employees know ways to make signals look
good that the manager hasn’t thought of and that
have nothing to do with results.
Another lousy feature of such systems that they
punish workers who have too much integrity to
game the measures
- Robert Austin
05-12-2015
24

This is where “Coaching Kata” comes in!
Thinking like this is not easy...
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25

Who does it?
 Limited impact
 Voluntary
improvement activity
 Train them to think
of kaizen
 Identify who is ready
to go to the next
level
 90% impact
 50% of their time!
 Part of their job
function
 Cost reduction via
improvement in
productivity and
quality
Team Members... Leader/Managers
http://networtech.com/despite-inert-economy-computer-programmers-still-high-
demand/ 05-12-
26

Pareto Charts don’t get it done!
 Its simply too late!
 Even then, we don’t
look into what is
happening now
 Root cause trail is
cold
 The “Other” bucket
 Our response has to
be immediate
 Our response
should NOT BE
from the team
members...
 Why? Because if the
problem is quickly
fixed, you will not be
able to address the
root cause
 Too strongly
influenced by your
pain.. 05-12-
27

Coaching the Straight Drive...
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Your observations...
05-12-2015
29
 What’s the approach?
 How is it different from what we do today?
 Bottomline, this isn’t traning OR workshop! You
learn the art by doing it again and again and
again... Till your brain does it in an auto mode!
 Think about how you drive...
 KUMON...
 Do metrics, incentives and motivators help?

The basics of Coaching Kata
05-12-2015
30
 Menton-Mentee-Mentor-Mentee... Relationship
 At lowel levels, Mentor is mostly the line
manager; as you grow, the mentor changes to
someone not in the line
 Mentee is responsible for “doing”; mentor is
responsible for the “outcome”
 If the learner hasn’t learnt, the teacher hasn’t
taught...

The basics of Coaching Kata
05-12-2015
31
 As a mentor, let them experiment but keep them
in the zone; don’t tell them what to do (too hard!)
 There is value of learning through small errors; its
more permanent in nature
 It helps the mentor understand how the mentee thinks
 Inputs for future training and improvement
 Use a written document... A3... for a focussed
discussion
 Putting it down in one sheet is damn hard!
 Needs extreme clarity to be concise
 Don’t even suggest the template to begin with... lead
to something like it

Let’s summarize
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32
 Inspect and adapt... don’t copy
 It not adequate to implement a methodology,
model or method
 Think about you can make Continuous
Improvement a routine that your team can follow
without a second thought
Coachin
g
Kata
Improveme
nt
Kata
Images from:
http://www.memrise.com/user/dominici/
http://imgbuddy.com/cartoon-people-standing-
up.asp
http://getafteritsales.com/the-importance-of-
process/

Join us at: Lean Kanban India
2015
05-12-2015
33

Thank you for your time today...
 For any questions or
clarifications, reach me at:
 @sudiptal
 slahiri@digite.com
 I share my experiences at:
 http://sudi-thoughts.blogspot.in/
 Join Limited WIP Society
NCR, Bangalore, Pune and
Chennai Chapters
05-12-
34

Toyota kata for continuous improvement

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