Hoshin Kanri, also called policy deployment, is a Lean strategic planning method that aligns an organization around a small number of breakthrough objectives and cascades them through every level. Its signature tool is the X-matrix, and its signature practice is catchball: a back-and-forth negotiation of goals between levels rather than a top-down decree.
Hoshin Kanri comes from Toyota and the Lean tradition. The discipline is severe focus: typically three to five breakthrough objectives for the whole organization in a year, deployed downward so each level's annual objectives, improvement priorities, and targets line up with the level above.
What distinguishes it is catchball. Goals are not simply handed down; they are thrown back and forth between levels until the people who must deliver them agree they are realistic. That negotiation is what creates genuine ownership, and it is the part most cascades skip.
A breakthrough objective of "halve order-to-delivery time in two years" cascades into annual targets and improvement priorities for operations, IT, and logistics, negotiated via catchball.
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