Kata Level 3B - Lean Competency System

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Level 3B - Enterprise Coach

Level Descriptor Summary

Level 3B is aimed at the most experienced Coaches who want to both demonstrate their capability and competence to help/coach an organisation to successfully modify its culture towards a more scientific, learning and exploring mindset and way of working together, and can also demonstrate a high level of competency and practical experience in developing others to be Second Coaches.

A successful candidate at this level shall be able to demonstrate that they have developed a cadre of Coaches to also be able to act as Second Coaches, to a level equivalent to KCS Level 2C.

The goal: to help an organisation to develop a culture, where scientific thinking and coaching for scientific thinking are practised regularly on all levels

Prerequisites for Level 3B

KCS Levels 1A, 1B. KCS Levels 2A, 2B, 2C. KCS Level 3A

Knowledge requirements

The Level 3B Enterprise Coach shall know and understand:

  1. The requirements for the development of a Second Coach Starter Kata
  2. How to develop a Coach and understand the Second Coach development model
  3. How to coach a management team on the Implementation of Toyota Kata at enterprise level.

Application requirements

Level 3B builds on the Level 2 practical requirement and focuses on an experienced Coach’s ability to help an organisation’s management team to implement Toyota Kata as a skill building process throughout an entire organisation:

A Level 3B Enterprise Coach shall be able to:

  1. Establish a continuous skill building process where managers have their teams practice a scientific way of working – following the Improvement Kata four-step model – and deliberately coaching them in doing so – following the Coaching Kata five-phase model.
  2. Establish coaching for scientific thinking as part of daily management on all levels
  3. Establish a process for developing new coaches.

This requires both considerable experience in the use of Improvement and Coaching Kata, as well as expert levels of Second Coach capability and activity. In addition, specific management and leadership skills are needed as well as the abilities shown in Level 3A.

To gain Level 3B, a Coach must be able to demonstrate the ability to develop Second Coach competence and capability within an organisation – through leading by example and showing Coaching and Second Coaching best practice

Programme outcomes

At the end of the programme aligned to Level 3B Enterprise Coach. A practitioner shall be able to:

  • Show evidence that they have successfully developed 2nd Coaches at multiple points in their organisation (or client’s organisation)
  • Demonstrate ‘best practice’ coaching and second coaching skills and behaviour
  • Incorporate the use coaching and second coaching into Leader Standard Work
  • Evidence that the successful deployment of Toyota Kata has led to significant culture change in an organisation, whereby most managers and leaders are using scientific thinking to improve and coach their teams in improvement activity.

Topic examples

A training course or programme aligned to Level 3B will reference several of the following topics:

Leaders as Coaches

  • Integrating Coaching for scientific thinking and Second Coaching into Leader Standard Work
.

Second Coach training and development

  • Successfully moving Coaches from Starter Kata to proficiency in Scientific Thinking
  • How to move Coaches to competent Second Coaches
.

Leading by example

  • Demonstrating personal mastery of Scientific Thinking through the use of Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata at all levels of an organisation
  • Developing and shaping organisational kata and patterns of thinking that adapt the Starter Kata
.

Designing and managing an organisational change process at scale

  • Deployment of Toyota Kata as a key organisational principle across multiple sites / divisions / territories
  • Show how you as lead have successfully implemented Toyota Kata across an organisation, and how this has matured into a normal way of it achieving goals
.

Innovation

  • How Toyota Kata has been adapted through application in a new or novel way that has resulted in organisational transformation
.

Level assessment

The assessment should demonstrate that the outcomes have been achieved.

Knowledge

A knowledge assessment that demonstrates the learner can remember and understand Level 3B Kata knowledge, for example, through a multiple choice test, problem or case-based exams, oral exam, essay exam

Practical application

Overall, a Level 3B coach should be able to show that they have used Toyota Kata to develop a more scientific, learning and exploring mindset and way of working together across multiple teams or an entire organization, which has resulted in substantial culture modification. 

Specific areas of evidence shall include:

  • That their expertise in acting as Second Coach across one (or more) organisations resulted in a significant modification of culture across that organisation.
  • The habitual and daily use of Improvement and Coaching Kata in several teams, areas of an organisation or value stream, at all management levels. 
  • That habits became established with managers coaching for scientific thinking.
  • That the challenges and subsequent individual target conditions worked on were clearly linked to the highest level of organisational strategy.
  • That by practicing Toyota Kata an organisation achieved a significant improvement or challenge.
  • That the hands-on’ coaching and Second Coaching role played by the coach led to the development of scientific thinking across the entire organisation.

Evidence can be provided through case study, which shall include:

  • Training records and proof of achievement for Improvers and Coaches (showing attainment of Levels 1 and 2 of this model)
  • Evidence of Improvement & Coaching cycles and how they take place on a regular basis delivering multiple Target Conditions
  • How the improvement efforts links to strategy, how this strategy has been deployed to all levels, how Target Conditions have been developed
  • Testimonials from leaders, managers and team members through transcripts, video, recordings.