Reinier de Graaf Hospital set out on a typical process improvement journey in 2008, doing Six sigma and projects with the main goal to cut costs. Obviously, nothing changed in the line.

After starting to understand the importance of improving at the operational level on a daily basis, the work still needed to be connected with the overall goals.

Today, they have set an organisational challenge, focusing on quality, people and lead time. The real change has come in starting to develop managers into coaches.

At this study visit, you will see some of the new ways of working. The focus is however on the organisational challenge, how they break it down at each department and now learning with a clear purpose and direction.

You will meet thought leaders within the organisation and learn from each other with the facilitation of an experienced Kata practitioner.

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The City of Amsterdam, with 15,000 on people staff, started a lean journey around 2012. In several parts of the organization, people got inspired by the lean philosophy and started to form process improvement teams and manage work with daily stands. The publication of the book Toyota Kata by Mike Rother took the inspiration to a whole new level. The city invested in the education of a number of pioneers on kata work in a train-the-trainer setting. Kata thinking was spreading. And they have seen a widespread adoption of the thinking and reached significant results. Positively, in some department like social services and the service department, they are moving beyond trying out Kata for regular process improvements, to really start understanding how to build capability in the organisation.

At this study visit, you will of course see what they have done. But most importantly, you will get the chance to discuss and reflect with people working passionately to develop better services for their citizens

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Are you facing any of this issues:

• Having to deal with more and more complex challenges and unpredictable market environment?
• Planning everything in such a good way, but when you’re done it didn’t bring the expected results?
• There seem to be no solution available for your problem or the existing one doesn’t work?

Then, welcome to this experiential exercise where you will

• Understand what Kata is all about
• Have a first hands on experience through a simulation
• Experience how can we learn and practice this management routine
• Learn from practical cases from real implementations.

Alina Muresan is a Lean expert and a Kata practitioner for more than eight years. Alina is training and supporting top & middle managers worldwide in the implementation of the Improvement and Coaching Kata. She has been part of the definition of a Kata deployment approach in a company with 60,000 employees. Currently she is extending the experience of Human Resource Management where she has the opportunity to lead her department using the Kata approach. She is also developing a consultancy business as well as doing school activities for kids based on NLP and Kata.

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This workshop will answer the question of how to use the thinking behind Hoshin Kanri to link the traditional management-by-results strategy deployment, with Kata thinking and acting.

You will be trained to create a pull system for new target conditions. We will connect and translate overall strategic goals into actionable process conditions, i.e. target conditions. Agenda:

• Overview of the elements of a Hoshin Kanri Management System. PDCA, A3 thinking, Nemawashi, Catch ball, Control department concept.
• Linking Kata and Hoshin Kanri.
• Practical case from a real company. Train how to translate business targets over different management levels down to the value streams and into target conditions.
• Hands on Catch ball, Nemawashi and target condition development experience
• Outlook on how to manage Kata groups working on different aspects

Ralph Winkler is founder and CEO of LEAN PARTNERS Germany. Ralph has been supporting organisations like such as Daimler AG, Leoni wiring, and Boehringer Ingelheimto to develop a learning culture by applying Kata. He has also been Head of Engineering Department at the automotive supplier Meteor GmbH, where he introduced Kata as main the main problem solving and management pattern.

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On this session you will get an introduction into the TWI methodology and how it connects with the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata.

You will learn from a variety of pedagogical approaches and see practical examples of the methods.

You will understand how Kata supports to sustain the changes implemented through TWI:

• Job Instruction: changes in training of people, changes in work standards
• Job Relations: how to sustain changes in building relationships in the workplace
• Job Methods: how to ensure sustainability of improved processes

You will also learn how you can overcome the obstacles with the help of TWI:

• Job Instruction: obstacles in stability/standards
• Job Relations: obstacles in the environment/relations
• Job Methods: obstacles in productivity

Jitka Tejnorová is Company Partner and Manager of Education and Consultancy Projects, TWI Master Trainer and Kata Coach at DMC management consulting for example as HR Manager of PPF, a.s., the biggest Czech investment group.

Markéta Šimáková is Executive Director, TWI Master Trainer, Kata Coach at DMC management consulting. She has been working with HR consultancy for 20 years.

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Welcome to an intense workshop where you will train how to become a better coach.

Despite ambitious plans and the use of 2nd coaches, we often see that coaching skills develop slowly and even stagnating at times.

In order to improve, the coach must not only understand the feedback, but rather put it into action and practice it repeatedly. But how often do you get to train the same situation over and over again?

In this workshop, you will have that opportunity. Welcome to the dojo!

You will also train the role as 2nd Coach, with emphasis on observing and giving feedback.

Tilo Schwarz supports organisations and managers to successfully lead change and continuous improvement. In the past 10 years Tilo has focused his work on leading change and increasing target-orientated problem solving ability within teams and organisations. Between 2006 and 2012, being plant manager at Festool GmbH, he introduced the Toyota Kata as the main problem solving and management pattern.

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Do you recognise the difficulty of getting people to move or keep them moving when it comes to Continuous Improvement? How tedious it can be and how easily it gets stuck in “process thinking”? Join this workshop and you will discover what is needed to truly Improve Continuously.

We see more and more that continuous improvement—or lean—needs more than a collection of tools or belts. Also teaching improvement and coaching skills does not seem to be a guarantee for truly continuous improvement. It takes something more. Continuous energy is needed to work on improvements continuously.

• Where does that energy for continuous improvement come from?
• What is it that makes Toyota so successful when it comes to continuous improvement?
• Why do so many other organisations struggle?

These questions have been keeping us busy for a while now and we have come to a point where we think we found some answers, partly based on the material Toyota made available.

Lindsie van der Horst has been a Toyota Material Handling employee for 16 years. During that time she held different management positions, within the international sales and marketing organisation. In these different roles she learned about The Toyota Way from the source. Since 2015 she supports organisations in their continuous improvements efforts, as a self employed professional. The knowledge and experience gained at Toyota enable her to invite people to reflect on the general effort to change and more particular on their personal role in that effort. Her motto is: “Change starts with the first question.”

Emiel van Est started improving and designing processes for Hewlett Packard in 1997 and has since then helped a diverse group of clients in many different industries with their Lean efforts. He has also introduced Lean to many people by engaging them in simulations like the one that he co-developed with Scania. Emiel taught many classes for Scania in the Netherlands and has taught in Sweden as well. Since 2010 Emiel has concentrated his learning, teaching and practice on the deployment of Kata.

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During this workshop we will work through a real Kata scaling case, set in an IT department of a highly ambitious, innovative bank.

Mike Rother’s ‘Toyota Kata Culture’ sets the scene and forms the inspiration for this case. Taking Toyota Kata Culture as a point of reference, we discuss the step-by-step deployment of Kata and Kata routines at various levels of the organisation, the conditions required to make Kata work organisation-wide and how to expand learnings sideways and upwards.

The case describes the Kata deployment in an organisation of approximately 450 engineers and their leaders—the failures and successes along the way. The case will be used as the framework on which we will interact, practice and share our mutual learnings.

Key take aways:

• How to make Kata work at scale and the conditions you need to have in place
• How to detect and foster and expand learnings sideways and upwards

David Bogaerts has been a Lean & Agile coach within ING since 2007. When ING started with the Agile & IT transformation seven years ago, David was asked to join. Since then, he is working on the transition which has now spread across the entire ING organisation.

Ingeborg ten Berge has been a Lean & Agile coach at ING since 2015. When ING started with the Agile & IT transformation seven years ago, Ingeborg was a team manager. In this role she was involved in the Agile transition which has spread across the entire ING organisation. In 2015 she became a Lean & Agile coach.

Ingeborg and David are now focusing on how to ‘scale kata’ within ING while continuing to pursuit the dream of building a Learning Agile Organisation; an organisation practising scientific thinking everyday with the objective to accomplish the unimaginable.

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