Patrice Boutier and Conrad Soltero wrote The Seven Kata: Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training, (Productivity Press, 2012), to show how Training Within Industry (TWI) modules and kata skills together make a great application plan for sustaining change in a corporation.

The Japanese term, kata, has been defined as “a way of doing something,” “a pattern, form, routine, or method,” and “a training drill.”

“A kata is a routine or method that is practiced and used time and again, whereby it becomes second nature,” explains Mike Rother, author of Toyota Kata (McGraw-Hill, 2009) in a Quality Digest interview. “The intention is to learn a desired habit, skill, and mindset.”

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