Hoshin: align strategy through catchball

Hoshin: align strategy through catchball

Start with a small number of strategic gaps that matter to the organization. Discuss proposed contributions with the teams expected to deliver them, including resources, conflicts and feasibility. Alignment needs dialogue across functions as well as between levels. Link agreed work to observable measures and learning, then review progress and adjust the means when evidence changes. Frontline experience should inform strategic choices, not merely receive targets. A matrix can summarize the relationships but cannot replace those conversations. Use daily management to understand current capability and A3 thinking to carry the reasoning behind important improvement work.

Follow the method

1. Strategic gap
2. Proposed contribution
3. Catchball
4. Agreed improvement
5. Review evidence

Turn conflicting departmental promises into one testable contribution

Fictional equipment-services business: leaders want customers to receive confirmed repair dates sooner. Planning proposes daily small releases, while purchasing proposes larger less-frequent batches to reduce transaction effort. Both claim to support the strategy, but their resource and timing assumptions conflict.

Follow the method

1. Purpose
2. Trial scope
3. Capacity tradeoff
4. Shared ownership
5. Learning return

The target is shared; the proposed means conflict

Translate a strategic direction into a feasible team contribution, expose a cross-functional tradeoff and return evidence that can revise the agreed means.

Fictional equipment-services business: leaders want customers to receive confirmed repair dates sooner. Planning proposes daily small releases, while purchasing proposes larger less-frequent batches to reduce transaction effort. Both claim to support the strategy, but their resource and timing assumptions conflict.

Role: Service director, planning owner and purchasing owner discussing contributions with frontline representatives.

Normal condition

A small set of priorities links purpose, current gap, proposed means, capacity and review evidence.

The gap

Departments repeat the same strategic slogan while committing to incompatible operating patterns.

• The exercise teaches alignment dialogue, not a complete strategy or a mandatory X-matrix.
• A target is not evidence that the organization has capacity or a feasible method to achieve it.

1. State purpose and gap together

   The director asks what customers are waiting for and keeps date reliability beside speed. The group identifies availability confirmation as the current learning focus.

   Why: A single speed target can reward promises that the process cannot honor.

   Evidence: The contribution starts with customer outcome and a specific process gap.

2. Ask for means and capacity evidence

   Each owner explains how the proposed pattern would change the wait, what specialist time it requires and which assumptions remain untested.

   Why: Catchball is a dialogue about feasible contributions, not merely sending a number downward.

   Evidence: Daily versus twice-weekly confirmation and the shared specialist dependency are visible.

3. Resolve the horizontal conflict

   Planning and purchasing propose a bounded daily review for a defined priority subset while observing specialist demand. The director agrees what existing work can be deferred during the trial.

   Why: An additional task without capacity tradeoff is an unfunded promise.

   Evidence: The agreement names eligible cases, owner, support and work deliberately deferred.

4. Return trial evidence to direction

   The owners review confirmation delay, promise reliability, specialist workload and effects on deferred work. They report what the trial taught before scaling or revising the means.

   Why: Frontline evidence must travel upward and sideways, including evidence that challenges the initial plan.

   Evidence: A review decision can adopt, adapt or abandon the means while explaining implications for the strategic objective.

Speed improves but promises become unreliable

A hypothetical trial shortens initial confirmation, but several dates are revised because availability was assumed rather than verified.

Do not scale the method as a success. Examine the missing verification and adapt the trial while preserving the customer reliability requirement.

Optimizing one measure can defeat the strategic purpose.

Report both confirmation time and revised promises, with affected conditions and the next test.

Run a practice session

Materials

• Director/planning/purchasing role cards
• Blank contribution agreement
• Competing schedule cards

1. Frame strategic purpose · 5 minutes

   What would make faster confirmation worse for the customer?

2. Conduct catchball dialogue · 8 minutes

   What work or capacity supports your promise?

3. Practice shared-specialist case · 9 minutes

   Who can authorize the tradeoff?

4. Debrief learning return · 5 minutes

   What evidence would make leadership revise the means?

Debrief

• If the answer repeats the target, request an operating proposal and resource assumption.
• Accept alternative trials with explicit scope and countermeasures for displaced work.

Write the contribution, then challenge it from the other department’s perspective before revising.

Transfer into the work

Owner: Strategy sponsor and cross-functional contribution owners

Record: Contribution/trial agreement linked to strategic purpose

Review: At the agreed trial review and periodic strategic reflection

Evidence: Customer outcome, operational feasibility, capacity tradeoffs and unintended effects

Return the constraint to the sponsor and revise means or commitments rather than quietly accepting impossible targets.