Hoshin Planning System
Hoshin Kanri turns a handful of breakthrough goals into aligned action at every level of the organisation, using two-way negotiation - catchball - between levels instead of goals simply being handed down, so the plan people execute is one they actually helped shape.
Boxes run left to right from vision through breakthrough goals to annual review - the 'Cascade catchball' box is where each level negotiates the objective back up, not just receives it from the one above.
Reach for this when…
- Annual goals get set at the top and quietly ignored by the time they reach the floor.
- Every department has its own priorities and none of them add up to the company's.
- You have too many strategic priorities and none are actually breaking through.
How to run it
- Set out where the organisation is heading - the long-term vision, not just this year's targets.
- Pick three to five breakthrough objectives for the next three to five years - not a long wish list.
- Turn those into specific objectives for the coming year.
- Cascade each objective down a level and negotiate how it translates locally - this is catchball.
- Deploy the agreed local plans with clear owners and metrics, repeating catchball at each level.
- Review monthly or quarterly against the plan, and adjust the actions without abandoning the goal.
- Review annually, capture what was learned, and feed it into the next planning cycle.
A worked example
Situation. Rafael Peña ran a mid-sized furniture manufacturer in Santiago, Dominican Republic, where the board's annual goals reliably died somewhere between head office and the factory floor.
Applied. He picked three breakthrough goals and ran catchball properly for the first time - each department pushed back on what was actually achievable, and the goals were reshaped rather than just handed down.
Result. Line supervisors reported feeling ownership of the targets for the first time in years, and two of the three goals were hit inside the year rather than quietly dropped by March.
The catch
Catchball only works if senior leaders are genuinely willing to have goals pushed back and reshaped - if it's negotiation in name only, it becomes the same top-down cascade with extra meetings. It's also a heavy, slow process that suits a small number of real breakthrough goals, not a long list of departmental wishes. Skip catchball and you've just renamed your old planning process.
If the goals look identical after catchball as before it, the negotiation didn't actually happen.
Origin: Bridgestone Tire; popularised by Yoji Akao