Enhancing Hoshin Kanri Planning Methodology

Enhancements to a traditional Hoshin Kanri planning methodology is achieved through a business management system that integrates strategic planning with performance metrics.

Traditional Hoshin Kanri Planning Methodology

Hoshin kanri or Hoshin planning is to be a “management compass” for determining strategic goals and their execution. Hoshin kanri is intended to help an organization with:

  • Shared goal focus
  • Goal communication to all leaders
  • All-leader involvement in planning to achieve the goal
  • Set-up accountable for achieving individual plan portions

Hoshin kanri assumes that daily controls and performance measures are in place.

The hoshin process uses a standardized set of table reports in the review process. Managers and work teams are to use these reports to assess performance. Each table is to include:

  • Header, which includes the author and plan scope
  • Situation, which is to give meaning to the planned items
  • Objective, which is to be achieved
  • Milestones, which are to show when objective is achieved
  • Strategies, which are to describe how objectives are achieved
  • Measures, which are to check that the strategies are being achieved

Hoshin tables types:

  • Hoshin review table
  • Strategy implementation table
  • Business fundamentals table
  • Annual planning table

These reviews are conducted at all levels of the organization. The review is completed using information from:

  • Hoshin review tables
  • Corporate objectives
  • Business plans
  • Economic projections
  • Customer inputs
  • Quality assessment, when applicable

 

Traditional Strategic Planning Process Assessment

For a given organization and situation, would it be reasonable to expect that there could be a difference of opinion

  • Relative to how a hoshin kanri is conducted?
  • How activities are described and undertaken?

After initiating hoshi kanri:

  • How is it known that the developed strategy will benefit the business as a whole relative to the financial metrics?
  • What hoshin kanri deployment effectiveness might we expect, considering previous experiences?
  • How will everyone throughout the organization be able to relate to all the tables and reports that need to be completed relative to completion of their normal day-to-day work activities?
  • How will the organization know if reported hoshin kanri improvements were statistically significant and the results are long lasting?

These are very important issues that need to be structurally addressed to ensure that there is an orchestration of strategic effort so that the whole enterprise system benefits. These types of decisions need to be based on the results of structured approach, which includes a blending of analytics with innovation in the creation of strategies and an alignment of improvement efforts with existing scorecards that are tracked statistically over time; however, this often does not occur.

 

Hoshin Kanri Planning Methodology Enhancement

As with most things, hoshin kanri implementation has pluses and minuses.

What is needed is a system that addresses the following shortcoming of hoshin kanri planning process:

  • Execution possibilities for high-level defined strategies are very team dependent and can lead to detrimental activities for the enterprise as a whole.
  • The driver and infrastructure of hoshin kanri center on the cascading of executive management’s strategies throughout the organization. The direction of work activity could significantly change when there is a significant change in executive leadership or leadership direction.The time could be lengthy, and resource needs could be large to incorporate executive direction change into an enterprise hoshin kanri system.
  • Missions and strategies are to cascade throughout the organization chart. An organizational change, company purchase,or company spin-off that redirects focus could lead to much confusion and frustration.
  • For a given situation, there can be many ways to analyze data. A roadmap is needed for these analyses.
  • Table listings for performance-measure action limits can lead to inappropriate activity. This format for action-limit establishment does not systematically address process shift and other situations that can be addressed only through charting. Performance-measure action limits set without examining a 30,000-foot-level metric chart can lead to firefighting.

These issues are overcome with the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE).

The above was taken from the Integrated Enterprise Excellence, Volume II – Business Deployment: A Leaders’ Guide for Going Beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard.

 

hoshin kanri planning methodology book

 

Additional Information about Hoshin Kanri Planning Methodology Enhancement Integration with IEE

For additional information about IEE integration for hoshin kanri planning process enhancement see:

 

Contact Us to set up a time to discuss with Forrest Breyfogle how your organization might gain much from an Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) Business Process Management System and its enhanced hoshin planning methodology.