Kata coaching has successfully been used in practice, in organizations that have adopted Super7 Operations. One important lesson: keep it simple, keep the improvement steps small.

Recently, Super7 Operations was introduced at a debt management department. The team managers responded very well to the step-wise improvement method of Kata. However, they sometimes found it difficult to accept that the goal for next week would be anything less than reaching the desired condition. This lead to too many actions on the action list, that couldn’t all be finished within one week. To my opinion, this one-week rhythm is essential for maintaining momentum in the early stages of development of Super7 Operations. The lesson that we learned is to keep the improvement-kata simple: one action in one week, one experiment, one problem to solve. The improvement steps may seem small, too small perhaps, but in our experience this is in fact the maximum improvement pace for the organization.

The Kata Coaching Questions (my own free interpretation – please refer to www.lean.org/kata for the standard):

1. What does perfection look like to you on this element of Super7 Operations?
2. How does the current situation look like?
3. Where do you want to be next week on the development of this element of Super7 Operations? And what obstacles are preventing you from being there now?
4. What action or experiment will you take to get to where you want to be next week?
5. What do you expect from this action?
6. When will be able to evaluate what you have learned from this action or experiment?

 Theory and examples of Kata coaching can be found on www.lean.org/kata or in the excellent books and you-tube posts of Mike Rother.