Hello everyone, Stuart here. In our latest PCE blog, I’m talking about the problem with problems. I’d welcome your thoughts and experiences of effective and not so effective Problem-solving, so please join the debate. I hope you enjoy this article.

Some of you may already know that I am a big fan of Lean Kata, probably one of the least understood – yet powerful – improvement approaches (not a tool, definitely not a tool) used by Toyota. Its lack of ‘popularity’ and uptake, especially in the UK, is a mystery to me and many others.

Sounds pretty dramatic doesn’t it? But that was exactly my principle take away from attendance at the recent 25th Anniversary LERC Conference at Cardiff Business School. Dan Jones was the keynote speaker. He looked really well – despite his admittance that he’d suffered some ill health recently – and he was in fine form nonetheless!

I first became aware of the process of Kata in 2004, when I was a Group Leader at Toyota’s Assembly Plant in Derby in the UK. Except I don’t recall it being called ‘kata’ or even that I was being coached through a structured process – it was just how things were done there!