The presentation team is made of up some of the most experienced KATA coaches, learners, and practitioners. Learn from them during breakout sessions, deliberate practice sessions and keynotes. But, just as important, learn from them (and each other) over coffee, lunch, or in a hallway conversation.
To read session descriptions please click
Tracy Defoe
What 3 questions might this workshop answer for an attendee?
Oscar Roche
What 3 questions might this workshop answer for an attendee?
Let’s get ready for KataCon 11 together. Warm up with a hands-on intro to kata and get the most out of the conference.
Whether you’re new to KATA or a seasoned practitioner, this interactive 4hr workshop is for you if:
– You’re new to KATA and would like to get a hands-on and fun introduction to the topic.
– You know about KATA and would like to refresh or deepen your understanding.
– You teach and practice KATA with others and would like to get some fresh ideas on how to make your training engaging and fun.
– You are coming to KataCon for the first time. We’ll help you find your way and connect you with the KATA community. You will leave with connection and next steps.
– You are a KataCon veteran and would like to warm-up for this year’s conference in a fun and engaging way.
Objectives:
Participants will be able to
Explain and have experience with the IK and the starter kata.
Explain and have experience with the CK and the coaching starter kata
Have a plan to get the most out of KataCon, and a plan for afterwards to connect with the kata community.
Join us for an engaging and interactive workshop where you’ll explore the powerful combination of Toyota Kata and Training Within Industry (TWI) by building bicycles. This hands-on experience will allow you to experiment with safer and more efficient work methods while enhancing your collaborative skills.
In this workshop, you’ll discover innovative approaches to navigating the dynamics of human interaction, ultimately improving the synergy between different improvement practices. We will focus on practical applications of the TWI J-Programs, Toyota Kata, and coaching techniques. Through numerous iterations, we will explore what the different methods do to the situation. Through the Kata coaching patterns, we will explore when and how TWI Job Instruction is used and where improvements (TWI Job Methods) will occur. How is that all made smooth with TWI Job Relations in the group?
It all happens as part of the dialog and practices where you will develop and refine your skills in these areas.
Led by seasoned BTP Enablers with extensive experience in TWI, Toyota Kata, and coaching, you will have the opportunity to apply these techniques in a real-world context while assembling bicycles. This unique learning environment encourages active participation, ensuring that you and your team not only observe best practices but also practice and master the skills needed to excel.
As a meaningful bonus, the bicycles constructed during the workshop will be donated to charity, adding a rewarding dimension to your experience.
This workshop is designed for everyone, fostering growth for all participants. Specifically, it is ideal for:
• Executives, Managers, Directors, and Leaders aiming to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement within their organizations.
• Coaches and Trainers focused on developing skill sets for problem-solving, leadership development, and fostering continuous improvement behaviors.
• Individuals responsible for engaging their workforce at all levels, utilizing skill sets that drive transformation and improvement.
• Lean Leaders, HR Leaders, and Key Managers involved in day-to-day operations that shape and influence their organization’s culture.
• Anyone seeking to enhance their capabilities in problem-solving, coaching, and process improvement.
While prior knowledge of TWI and/or Kata is beneficial, it is not required to participate in this workshop
We look forward to seeing you there!
Many functional leaders are asking how to master the topic of standards. In answer to this popular demand, Cheryl Jekiel, Oscar Roche and Becca Jenkins will present a workshop on understanding the concepts within standards and how they fit together as a system, along with other elements of TWI and continuous improvement. The session outlines ‘Work Standards, ‘Standard Work’ and ‘Standardized Work’ and the order they need to be considered. Through interactive work sessions, participants will explore examples of standards in their respective workplaces and how they fit with other CI/TWI practices. The session also includes a path for implementation that optimizes a strong foundation based on work standards. Last, participants have a take-away tool to assess their current workplace and establish next steps for strengthening the approach to standards and how it fits with other TWI and CI concepts. The workshop includes a case study to see how the concepts have been applied for greater success. <br>
Three Questions this workshop will answer for a participant:
Join us for an in-depth conversation, guided by experienced TWI masters. This is a great opportunity to explore more advanced topics with your peers. The meet-up is not designed for those new to TWI (only those who have practiced it).
A fun warm up for the summit! In the spirit of sharing, networking and growing community – join us for multiple 5-minute mini presentations complimented with group discussion.
Jim Huntzinger w/ Kelly Mallery + Dwayne Butcher
Kelly Mallery
William Harvey: The Psychology of Improvement: How Thinking Drives Kata
Maria Grzanka + Kelly Mallery
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Kelly Mallery of Kata School Cascadia
Tucker Kass
Gerd Aulinger
What are you thinking and wondering so far...
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Tracy Defoe of Kata School Cascadia.
Julie Savage-Fournier
Mark Rosenthal
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Dwayne Butcher + Kelly Mallery of Kata School Cascadia
Are you ready to transform the way you approach Kata coaching?
Join us for an exclusive 90-minute deep dive into the future of kata coaching, powered by GenAI. This hands-on experience will not only immerse you in a cutting-edge Kata dojo where you can practice and refine your coaching techniques with the support of an intelligent AI assistant, but also offer the unique opportunity to be coached by Denise, the famous coach from Tilo Schwarz’s book, "Giving Wings to Her Team" or asked Denise to play the role of the improver to help your practice your Kata coaching microskills. Known for her wisdom, patience, and expert guidance, Denise has helped countless improvers improve their scientific thinking potential, and now you can engage directly with this legendary figure in a fully interactive environment. It’s not just learning—it’s a breakthrough experience that fuses technology and human ingenuity.
This session promises to inspire and challenge your Kata practice in a cool and playful way you’ve never imagined. Whether you're a Kata beginner or experienced coach, you'll walk away with fresh insights and ideas on how you could integrate AI into your kata journey. Imagine receiving personalized feedback from Denise.
Don’t miss your chance to explore the future of Kata coaching and take part in a dynamic, transformative experience that blends technology with the timeless power of human coaching!
Do you need top secure buy-in for Job Instruction from your organization's key stake holders (champions)?
Are you looking to present the benefits of Job Instruction in a quick yet impactful manner?
If so, what you need is a compelling "Hook" to engage your champions "Hook, line and sinker"!
In education, a lesson "hook" acts like a secret ingredient that sparks excitement and grabs attention right from the start. Its goal is to ignite curiosity, enhance motivation, and ensure full engagement. Similarly, in the realm of Learning and Development (L&D), captivating your organization's champions is crucial and requires creative and compelling strategies.
As part of the Job Instruction community, we know that Job Instruction is a proven, reliable and research-supported method for delivering top-notch workplace training. But, how do we convince our champions of it's value?
Join us for a demonstration of a creative and engaging "hook" designed to capture your champions' interest and foster commitment to Job INstruction training within your organization. In this Train-the Trainer session, you'll experience the "hook" firsthand and walk away with a lesson plan to effectively deliver this "hook" in your organization as well as a general training structure to know who to deliver it to!
Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your approach towards gaining essential support from your champions!
By practicing Kata individually people can develop scientific thinking habits. But practicing Kata collectively, whole teams and organizations can develop a shared culture of scientific thinking, daily improvement and breakthrough innovation which is orders of magnitude more powerful than single individuals could ever achieve alone. In this interactive workshop we want to explore and experience how using synchronized, cascaded, daily coaching sessions as a management system permeating all levels and divisions of an organization can drastically increase your organization´s problem solving and innovation capability.
This 90-Minute interactive session provides a deep dive into how to improve the target deployment process for bigger teams, accelerating vertical and horizontal communication, allowing for shared learning and fast corrections for best adaptability, increasing team efficiency and efficacy while drastically reducing conflict potential among divisions.
Three Questions this session will answer for a participant:
1. How can Kata be formally structured inside an organization to work as an holistic management system
2. How does the cascaded system work? How to use the Coaching Kata at all levels to simultaneously increase your team´s learning and communication speed and efficacy by orders of magnitude?
3. Tips and Tricks for starting your own Kata Coaching Cascades and reaching the tipping point for Kata to grow organically within a few weeks
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Kelly Mallery of Kata School Cascadia
If you're staying at the Embassy Suites - grab a cocktail from their complimentary cocktail hour!
Pat Morrissey + Mike Vittorio
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Tracy Defoe of Kata School Cascadia
Tony Burns
Kaitlyn Wolken • The University of Kansas Health System
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Cheryl Jekiel + Jim Huntzinger
Sylvain Landry
Dominic Stokes
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Kelly Mallery of Kata School Cascadia
Dirk VanRossum + Ann Buck • Helena Industries
Pat Geary • Story Construction
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Cheryl Jekiel + Jim Huntzinger
Jonathan Tate, Bill Kraus + Brandon Brown
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Mark Rosenthal + Kelly Mallery of Kata School Cascadia
Nancy Krauss • Panduit
David Hill • Cornerstone Building Brands
What are you thinking and wondering so far....
Facilitated by Cheryl Jekiel + Jim Huntzinger
You should be coaching, they say - but nobody helps you to get better at it? Coaching is becoming a core skill for anybody entrusted with a leadership role, and many organizations require managers to coach their teams.
Although we might be coaching every day, chances are high that we are not as good as we need to be, and we are not even getting better at it. Repetition doesn’t make perfect; it makes permanent. Michael Jordan put it nicely: “You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way.”
This is where the Kata Dojo supports with a quicker and more effective approach to develop coaching skill with individuals as well as throughout all management levels of an organization.
The Kata Dojo provides a sports-like approach where coaches can repeatedly practice a series of specially designed training exercises and role play in a safe offline environment. This setup allows coaches to hone their skills through repeating coaching situations at a much higher frequency than would occur in reality. Experience an approach that has the potential to take your coaching skills to the next level. The Kata Coaching Dojo – where practice meets perfection, and leaders evolve.
Find out more at www.kata-dojo.com.
In this hands-on session you will …
• Experience how the Kata Dojo works.
• Deliberately practice coaching in a multi round Kata Dojo exercise.
• Take away several coaching-hacks that you can apply immediately.
Who should attend
• Anyone enabling and coaching others to master challenges.
• Managers who want to coach their teams for superior results.
• Change managers and consultants, looking for a method to train coaches more effectively and scale effective coaching throughout their or their clients organization.
This interactive session explores the integration of AI, specifically GPT technology, to enhance Training Within Industry (TWI) practices. By leveraging AI’s capabilities, participants will discover practical ways to improve Job Instruction (JI), Job Relations (JR), and Job Methods (JM).
The session will demonstrate how AI can streamline JI by generating clear, consistent training materials and step-by-step guides, ensuring improved skill transfer and retention. For JR, AI can offer data-driven insights into employee relations, predicting potential conflicts and recommending actionable solutions. In JM, AI will assist in optimizing processes by analyzing task efficiency, suggesting innovations, and fostering continuous improvement. This hands-on session will provide real-world examples, practical tools, and collaborative exercises, equipping attendees to immediately apply AI-enhanced strategies to their organizations’ TWI programs. Join us to explore how AI can revolutionize these foundational components, improving productivity, engagement, and long-term operational success. Plus, William will share a few expert tips on how to use GPT for common continuous improvement practices to help solve problems.
Three Questions this session will answer for a participant:
1. What is GPT and how do I use it to improve work effectiveness and efficiency?
2. What prompts yield the best results?
3. What is GPT memory and how is that helpful in my work?
Experimenting in the workplace. Important? Let’s practice.
Has conducting an experiment in the workplace been made more complicated than it might really be? Maybe we have lost sight of the practical nature of straightforward Plan, Do, Check, Act (Adjust). Might we advance more quickly if we reconsidered ‘doing’ as actually experimenting? (Actually, if you consider the definition of ‘knowledge threshold closely, many things should be considered experiments and conducted as such.)
Attend this session and (through simulation):
▪ Become clearer on ‘practical PDCA’.
▪ Learn by Planning, Doing, Checking and Adjusting …!
Three Questions That Will Be Answered For A Participant
▪ How do I know where my/our knowledge threshold actually is?
▪ What is the minimum that should be covered in the Plan (of PDCA)?
▪ What is the most important question in PDCA?
Mark Rosenthal
Next Steps
Oscar Roche works closely with clients to realize organizational change, develop people capability and meet business improvement goals. He believes the long-term success of any business lies in the development of it’s people.
This belief, combined with extensive operations management experience, helps him add value to every organization he works with. Oscar holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences. His diverse sector expertise includes training, logistics, FMCG, chemicals, beverages and food. Having run his own business and worked in various manufacturing roles for many years, he keenly appreciates the competing pressures modern firms face.
A results driven lean director and manager with over twenty years experience implementing lean manufacturing and continuous improvement. Deep understanding of the Toyota Production System with proven ability see any organization’s potential, cut to the core issues, gain “buy-in” and get things moving by engaging the entire team to develop solutions to impact the bottom line. An effective change agent who facilitates the process of discovery.
Specialties: Lean Manufacturing implementation in brown field or green field operations.
Operations Excellence · Leadership Team Training and Development · Study Missions · Strategy Development · Value Stream Mapping · Taming ERP / MRP Systems · Supplier and Supply Chain Development · 3P · Kaizen · Heijunka · Kanban · Work Cells · A3 Problem Solving
Always seeing the possibilities.
Rheumatologist; Division Director of Rheumatology at The Christ Hospital
Lou Flaspohler, MD, is a practicing rheumatologist in Cincinnati, OH, serving as the Division Head of Rheumatology at The Christ Hospital. He graduated with a B.A. in Communications Arts and Marketing from Xavier University and obtained his Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Cincinnati. Following his medical school training, Lou completed an Internal Medicine residency at The Christ Hospital and a Rheumatology Fellowship at Indiana University at the medical campus in Indianapolis, Indiana.
It is Lou’s deep belief that helping foster and build, servant led, purpose driven, evolutionary organizations (organizations which work to develop people as opposed to developing people to work) will do vastly more to improve the wellbeing of our nation and world than any pill, surgery or treatment western medicine will ever devise.
The 10-Hour Job Instruction (JI) training trains you on the most effective technic, Skill, to consistently and repeatably train others to perform a job. This enables an organization to create process stability across all workers and shifts to lay a solid foundation for continuous improvement. Learning the Skill of Job Instruction trains you to successfully breakdown a given job and train others to successfully learn the job in the quickest, safest, most effective manner.
The 10-Hour Job Relations (JR) training teaches the essential Skills of leadership, preventing and solving people issues, and the underpinning for good teamwork. The JR Skill enables the development and building of constructive relationships by recognizing and preventing problems from arising that hinder better performance and improvement. It lays the foundation for a work environment which creates an atmosphere of collaboration and problem solving.
The 10-Hour Toyota Kata (TK) training teaches and practices the techniques of the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata. The Toyota Kata training builds the patterns and behaviors of scientific thinking and practice creating a successful foundation of continuous improvement. TK builds the habits of problem-solving behaviors, and coaching others to successfully think and work through improvement objectives through systematic experimentation.
If you intend to develop a successful learning organization that thrives and grows in its respective market, you might want to expand the practice of Kata to all corners of your organization, making targeted improvement and innovation activities an integral part of everybody’s daily business. Kata is probably the best method we know to create the necessary scientific thinking and acting habits required for long term competitive success. So if you want to develop a “Toyota Kata Culture” you will probably need to have your teams practicing collectively every day. <br/>
After over a decade of experimenting and practicing with dozens of companies how to introduce Kata as a holistic management system, we found out that the best way to ensure that Kata will be successful long term may be based on a “simple” trick: daily, CASCADED COACHING as Mike Rother and I described in the orange book “Toyota Kata Culture”. Why? Because CASCADED COACHING satisfies these six requisites for long lasting success:
On this full day Kata Cascades Training we will share, experience, coach, learn and discuss a lot of methods, tricks, and routines that you can use to start your own coaching cascades with your own teams immediately. We will set up a coaching cascade with all participants and strive to achieve a challenging target condition together as a team. We will learn how to deploy and coordinate targets across many hierarchical levels, speed up vertical communication, horizontal communication and increase our collective improvement speed by orders of magnitude compared to individual coaching. You will get to know routines, tools, forms, boards and methods you can apply to get your own coaching cascades going right away.
