Improvement Kata: Lessons Learned Striving (and not achieving) the Next Target Condition | 063
Welcome to Lean Leadership for Ops Managers, the podcast for leaders in Ops Management who want to spark improvement, foster engagement, and boost problem solving – AND still get their day job done. Here’s your host, Leadership Trainer, Lean Enthusiast, and Spy Thriller Junkie, Jamie V. Parker.
[00:00:29] What’s up, friends. It’s Kata time. That’s right, if you are a Kata geek or Kata curious, or maybe you don’t even really care about Improvement Kata, but you like to hear my stories of learning and stretching and growing and falling down? Yeah, you know who you are.
Well, I am checking in with my learning group experience with the Kata Girl Geeks, so if you haven’t yet, head back to listen back to I think it was episodes 54 and 55 to hear the history of how I got involved with the Kata Girl Geek Learning Group and my painful but very important learnings in Step Two, Grasp the Current Condition.
Now, at this point, I just reached, at least at the time that I’m recording it. I know that it’s not going to release until way later. It doesn’t really fit into my publication schedule until then, but I’m recording it now, and where I’m at is that I have gotten to my first Strive by Date for my next Target Condition. So I set the direction or challenge, I grasp with the Current Condition, I establish a next Target Condition, I experiment toward the target condition, and now we’ve achieved the date.
I did not achieve my next Target Condition; I achieved the date. And so now we’re doing the summary reflection and we’re going back around to restart that cycle. So that’s where we are. Just so you know, now when I think about establishing a next target condition, I want you to know that the first time I did this, like I really wanted to go backwards.
[00:02:11] You see, the Starter Kata within the established next target condition is first. You review the challenge, then you agree on achieve by date, then you state the necessary outcome performance of the process. What are the outcome metrics and not just the outcome metrics, but what’s necessary in order to achieve your challenge? And then you define the desired attributes. This is where you figure out your target operating pattern, your block diagram, your process characteristics. So here’s what I wanted to do already. I wanted to go backwards. I wanted to do my target operating pattern first. I wanted to do my block diagram and all that first, then figure out what outcome metric that would achieve and then say, OK, I think I could achieve that by this date.
So learning number one is to go in order. Actually follow the order of the Starting Kata. And I’ve got to tell you, I had to relearn this lesson recently, so I was just going back through my second round. And so it was a Friday, and I had like a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit of Grasp the Current Condition left like I was going to take 15 seconds, right? But I’d had this whole weekend. My next coaching cycle wasn’t going to be until Monday. And so I didn’t want to lose that time. And so I wrote my next step as to finish that Grasp the Current Condition part that last little bit and to draw my Block Diagram for my next target condition.
[00:03:42] And my coach was like, Hey, let’s pause for a minute. So what are the Starter Karta steps within Establish the Next Target Condition? And I’m like, Oh, oops, I was jumping straight to the Target Operating Pattern again. I sure was.
So anyways, let’s go back to my first cycle all the way through. So I established my Next Target Condition. We had a stride by date that was two weeks out my outcome metric. I had to take a little bit of a stab at it because the reality was I wasn’t collecting any of that data before we started Grasping the Current Condition.
And so I didn’t have a long history, and I will tell you, I really wanted to get hung up here. And my coach just really helped me to pick something, and let’s move forward versus getting stuck in spinning or in perfectionism. So then we got to the point where it was the block diagram and the process characteristics, and I didn’t understand it, like, let’s just there’s a big old elephant in the room.
So can we call this out? So. Here we’re at, we’re beyond our knowledge threshold, right? I don’t know what pattern, what target, operating pattern or what needs to happen in order for me to achieve this process outcome. If I did, I would already be doing it.
[00:05:02] So we’re beyond my knowledge threshold and we’re writing a target operating pattern for something that’s two weeks out. But yet you want me to write the steps in the process characteristics of how it will work. Like I thought I didn’t know. I thought the whole point was to actually recognize our knowledge threshold. And now you want me to, like, move past my knowledge threshold. I’m so confused. So I don’t know if you’ve ever been confused by this, but I definitely was.
And here’s the end of the day, right at the end of the day, the way to learn through that is to do it. So there’s only so much listening to a podcast like this one or reading a book or having conversations with people. We’ll get you only so far. And then you’ve got to actually do it if you really want to learn it and grasp it and understand it.
So what I did realize, though, and this is what I learned about target conditions. Now remember there’s a target condition, so it’s not just the target, it’s the target operating pattern and process characteristics. And so the target condition you can’t change or take away from it. But you can add to it, so this is the secret of how you deal with this elephant in the room is that you want to be able to.
What I learned is that I this is what I’m working on now. I want to be able to be specific where it counts, but leave opportunity to get more specific later as where I need to.
[00:06:32] Because what happened the first time around is I set my block diagram and I set my process characteristics, and I was maybe three days away from my strive by date. And I was really annoyed because at that point, I didn’t want that process characteristic anymore. I didn’t want that step in a block diagram. I didn’t want to follow that anymore because I was pretty sure that I had demonstrated that wasn’t necessary. And I had overreached in how much detail I’d put in the target operating pattern and the target condition from the beginning.
And so, it’s not that you want to be super vague because you do need to make a prediction. You do need to be able to say, I predict that this operating pattern will yield this outcome, but that’s how I learned. I don’t know. All you kind of geeks can chime in on social media and let me know if you think it’s different, but that’s how that’s how I learned it for my first time around.
That’s the lesson I learned, and that’s how I’m applying it for my second target condition. I may come back when I, you know, come back at the end of this and say, Oh, guess what? I did a third or I did a fourth target condition, and now I have a different take on it. But this is my take so far.
[00:07:45] What do you think? I want to hear from you? What do you think? All right. So I want to share with you because here we go. I could just go on forever. I want to share with you a couple of things. First reminder. So these are just tactical things. Reminder the current condition is dynamic. Ok, so you have to continue to update your current condition as you go.
A few practical things about my graphs and my data.
- Use the actual numbers, not the percentages. So don’t say 80 percent. Say four out of five. Percentages leave an opportunity to hide what’s actually happening. And so we have the numbers. Let’s use the numbers.
- When making graphs, don’t forget to label your axis and your series and anything else that’s needed to help create more clarity and reduce confusion about what we’re looking at.
- This one comes directly from Tracy DeFoe, and I love it. I’m going to start using this all the time now. So she said when making a graph title it when you put the title of the graph with a question of what the data answers. And if you have a target reference that as well. So for example, I might title a chart or a graph, “How many minutes after the scheduled start time do I actually start my Get Work Done activity as compared to my two minute target?” Or it might say, “How many work activities do I complete in a workday compared to my target of 14?” So it’s a question that the graph then answers, and I love that.
- I almost forgot this one. One more tactical thing about graphs. This was from Andrea Lee. She said when you’re drawing your target line on your graph, like if you have a run chart and you’re putting your target line.
So let’s say my target is 14, so I’m putting a line there. It’s like only draw it until your achieve by date or strive by date, because when you set your next target condition, it might change, right? You might have a new target. So you just draw that target line until that date. And that way, when you set your next target condition, if it changes, you can, you know, have it somewhere different. You’re not having to white out of line. So that was smart, too.
[00:10:15] All right. Oh, my goodness, I’m getting sidetracked. So those are just some tactical things. Ok, now I do want to talk a little bit about experimenting toward the next target condition. So for me? The first experiment that’s recommended is “I Intend.” I picked up that language from the Kata Practice Guide, by the way, so that he says, use, I intend.
So I intend to run the target operating pattern or run the target condition, right?
And what I expect to happen, I might expect that I’ll be able to run this part, but not that part. I might expect that I’ll achieve this outcome, whatever it is, but I’m running. I’m trying to run the target operating pattern, the target condition to see what obstacles come up right. And I love this.
And so that’s exactly what I did to be able to transition from step three, Establish the Next Target Condition to step four, Experiment Toward the Next Target Condition. Now what I will have to say is the experimentation stage, right? It was way harder than I expected. Like, I’m like, Oh, it’s basically little mini PDCA cycles. This is simple. I can do this. No problem. Yeah, not really.
Can I tell you? You know what I had like the hardest time with is the difference between what happened versus what I learned. I don’t know if I’m the only one that has this problem, so I might be talking to a bunch of people who are like, I don’t get it. This is easy. But for me, what I realized is that I was writing stories and the stories would include some of what happened and some of what I learned. And so it wasn’t these two separate things. And in fact, I was using a mural board for my storyboard and I would put like five six seven eight nine stickies. In the what I learned section or in the What Happened section.
[00:12:23] And so there was just all of this crossover and it’s like I was just like vomiting out everything that came up, everything that happened and everything that I learned. And it took me this whole two week process of before I actually really clicked for me that they’re supposed to be a thread that carries through your entire experimenting record all the way through so that it logically flows. It’s logically connected. Like it’s not just supposed to be all the random things that happen and all the random things that I learned. It’s supposed to be targeted based on the next step, and the next step is based on the obstacle I’m working on now.
And so I want you to imagine this thread. So it starts with the challenge and then it goes to the next target condition and then it goes to the obstacle, the obstacle you’re currently working on that is preventing you from achieving your next target condition.
And so from there, you take a next step and the next step should be directly related to that obstacle. What do you expect to happen? Directly related, right? We’re carrying this thread all the way through. What actually happened? It should be specifically compared to what you expected to happen and then what you learned. What you learned is within the context of comparing what you expected to happen versus what actually happened. So it’s not like, you know this forever. What did you learn? Oh, I learned this and I learned this and I learned this.
[00:13:56] It’s really like, OK, so within the context of thinking about what you expected to happen, what you actually happened, what did you learn within that context? Now you can have other learnings, and you can save them and capture them and put them on your board and have a section. That’s fine. But for you’re experimenting record or at least the way I’m learning it for the experimenting record, we want it to flow all the way across.
So here’s the thing I haven’t done that successfully. This is what I’m learning. So this is what I’m going to work on my next round. I’m going to try and figure out how do I get those to flow logically? Because what I can tell you right now is Andrea would ask me a question of like, what do you expect to happen? What did you learn? And like I’m just like going, What? Ok? Right? What actually happened? What did you learn? And it didn’t make any sense. And so now I’m like, Oh, no wonder she was like, What in the world had that look on her face?
So anyways, I wanted to bring that up because this is what I’m going to work on for my next target condition cycle is trying to draw this direct logical link between all of these. I’ll let you know how well it goes. The other thing I’m going to work on is are my experiments designed to challenge my assumptions.
[00:15:17] So, you know, I of course, reread the of practice guide the section for whatever section I’m in. I reread it every time and I was like, Oh my goodness, look at this. The experiments are really supposed to prove yourself wrong, not prove yourself right. So I had been designing experiments to prove myself right. And you know, Andrea talks about, well, you know, how much learning takes place. You already knew that. So you can confirm your assumptions. But I want you to also build some experiments that are going to challenge your your assumptions. And so that’s a different way.
I realized that I was really just doing these things to, like, confirm what I already thought. And so now I need to figure out, well, what a which of my assumptions are wrong, which of my assumptions are wrong. And so that’s the other thing I’m going to work on. This next target condition is how am I like? How am I thinking about experiments and what I’m doing? And then how am I carrying that thread all the way through?
Now, one more thing. Just as a heads up, I am also switching to a physical board. So I’ve been using Mural this whole time, and I chose that right. It was my decision, and I chose Mural because I’m like, I don’t know. Physical board seems hard to manage. And sometimes I travel and, you know, then it’s stuck in my room. And what if I’m not in my office? What if I want to do this work from my basement or from the living room or whatever?
So anyways, I was a little resistant to physical board. My coach, Andrea and second coach Tracy both recommend it and I’m all for learning. So I’m like, All right, sign me up. Let’s try it. So I will also be updating you on the physical board the next time I come and talk about that. What do you think is going to happen? What’s your prediction there? All right.
So let me let me recover a few of these things that we talked about. I just want to summarize because I know it was a little all over the place today. Hopefully, you found a takeaway for yourself.
So when you’re setting a target condition and it’s beyond your knowledge threshold. So you really have to think about where and to what extent you need specifics. You know, how much are you going too far versus where you’re not going enough? And here’s the thing here’s what my coach said like you know what? It’s two weeks. Just try it. You’re going to have another one, right? So try it, you’re going to have another one. And that’s that. I agree. You got to learn. So pick one, it’s going to be a hypothesis. You predict that if you have this target operating pattern, it will yield these outcome results and know that you can add to your target condition as you learn more.
[00:18:05] Ok, now remember that the current condition is dynamic, so you need to keep updating your current condition. Use actual numbers, not percentages.
Graph when you make your graphs and you run charts, you want to label your access, your axes and your series and your target line only draw that target line to your achieve by or stride by date. Title it in form of a question.
The great first experiment is to run to the target condition to see what obstacles actually come up. Experiments are a way to prove myself wrong and to challenge my assumptions.
And there should be this thread going across your experiment record tying all of these together so that logically flows.
So those are some of my learnings from this first round going all the way through the Improvement Kata, and I’m setting a next target condition now and getting ready to start my next 10 days.
So what about for you? Well, listen, whether you practice Improvement Kata or not, I want you to take one next step, which is really just to reflect on all of those things I just summarized and decide on one thing that you want to reinforce to adjust or just to explore further. Because I don’t think all of this is just specific to Improvement Kata. I think there are some lessons learned that you can apply really to any type of improvement, thinking or leadership. All right, until next time.
