(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- The Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a nonprofit education, publishing, research, and conference organization, has opened registration for the “Improvement Kata/Coaching Kata” workshop that helps companies create and sustain cultures of continuous improvement.

The workshop will run Oct. 16–18, 2012, at LEI, 215 First St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Improvement Kata/Coaching Kata is one of five lean management workshops that will run from August through November at LEI.

Lean continuous improvement

Kata is Japanese term for a routine or method that is practiced and used again and again so it becomes second nature, like riding a bike or driving a car. Thus, the improvement kata is a routine for daily systematic improvement. It is a practice pattern, a behavior routine that helps managers and team members develop the ability to improve and solve problems. This ability is a key to creating a company culture based on continuous improvement where people, coached by their managers, make daily improvements based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, a method for learning and improvement developed by statistician Walter Shewhart.

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