What is the Elephant Carpaccio Kata?

The Elephant Carpaccio Kata trains teams to break down large requirements into small, deliverable increments. Developed by Alistair Cockburn, the task is intentionally simple: a calculator for order values with taxes and discounts. Teams split this requirement into 15–20 independent, deployable slices – and implement them in short iterations.

The goal is not the finished calculator, but learning vertical slices: each increment should deliver real value and be independently deployable. Teams that previously thought horizontally in layers (database first, then backend, then UI) experience a shift in perspective through the kata.

Why a European Variant?

The core principle and learning experience remain unchanged. Two reasons speak in favour of an adaptation.

AI-assisted Development Makes the Original Task Obsolete

The kata allows any form of implementation: classic coding, vibe-coding, or a pure spreadsheet. The problem: Elephant Carpaccio has become part of the AI folklore. In LLM-augmented IDEs, a few keystrokes are enough to get the complete solution suggested – the original task appears in countless training datasets.

The task must therefore be varied so that AI-assisted autocompletion does not become an unintended shortcut – without having to forgo useful IDE support.

US Tax Terminology – an Unnecessary Context Switch

The original task uses US-American tax terms and state-specific rules. For European participants, this creates a distracting cognitive overhead: energy flows into domain questions rather than the actual goal – slicing increments.

The European variant replaces US states with EU member states and state tax with VAT. This lowers the entry barrier and simultaneously solves – at least temporarily – the AI problem: an unknown variant has not yet made it into training data.

The European Variant