Want your leadership team on one plan before January?
Talk with Incito about 2027 strategy deploymentMy recommendation: Go into 2027 with a plan your whole organization shares. Hoshin Kanri, also called strategy deployment, cascades your vision and strategy to every team member. Align leaders on True North, set the time horizons, choose one or two breakthrough objectives, test the straight line, cascade it through catchball, and review it every month.
This is urgent. You have to make certain you go into the new year with an overall plan. The best way to do that is strategy deployment.
The Japanese call this Hoshin Kanri. Hoshin is often translated as “shining needle” or compass, and kanri means management. In English it is also called policy deployment (Lean Enterprise Institute). It grew out of post-war Japan’s quality movement, and Toyota is one of the best-known companies that uses it. Really, it is a plan for how we cascade our strategy and our vision to the team members, so everyone is on the same page.
What it does: it creates alignment, enhances performance, builds on your existing leadership team, optimizes communication throughout the entire organization, and it is a proven methodology.
If you lead a growing manufacturing company, you feel the need for it as you add customers, machines, shifts and locations. Sales wants capacity for new business. Operations wants a stable schedule. Finance wants less inventory. Your plant managers want people and equipment they can depend on. Each of them is right. The hard part is deciding what comes first and getting everyone to act on it.
How do you start Hoshin Kanri for 2027?
Start with True North. Hand each leader a yellow post-it note and have them write the vision, the mission, the core values, the three to five metrics you measure success by, and their own role in it. Don’t look at your neighbor’s paper. Now hold them up. Less than five percent of the leaders in that room will have the same vision statement.
Then set the time horizons. The goal is three years. The strategy is two years, and it defines the how. The objective is what you are doing in 2027, and the tactics are how you attain it. Call it a salami sandwich, so long as each one is defined for your organization.
How do you choose and cascade the 2027 objectives?
Pick one or two breakthrough objectives. Ask your leaders, “If demand rose 20%, where would our operation struggle first?” and answer it with operating data. Turn that constraint into an objective. As an illustration, that could be raising on-time delivery from 86% to 95% before you take on more volume. Everything else is daily management, measured the same way in every department.
Put the plan on one page, often an X-matrix, with the goals, objectives, metrics and owners. For every tactic, ask: when I turn this lever, will the needles move?
Then cascade it, vertically and horizontally, with the roles, the responsibilities and the interdependencies. Hoshin Kanri does this through catchball: leaders and teams trade proposals, concerns and commitments until the plan fits both the business and the operation.
- What would make this target achievable?
- What must another department change?
- What decision do you need from me?
How do you keep the plan on track in 2027?
Keep tactics to 30, 60 or 90 days. You don’t want a tactic that is a full year long. In January: how is it going? It’s ongoing. April: it’s on track. November: it’s ongoing. December: we are not going to complete our objective. In smaller increments, you know when you need to pivot and adjust.
Review monthly, quarterly and annually. Track each objective on one page, monthly target against actual, green or red. Hoshin teams call it a bowling chart. Spend the meeting on the red and leave with decisions and named owners.
Before January, ask each leader to explain your top priorities and their part in them. You will quickly hear where alignment is missing. If you are also starting a Lean transformation, here is what the first 90 days should look like.
Go into 2027 with one plan, cascaded to everyone who has to deliver it.
Frequently asked questions
What does Hoshin Kanri mean?
Hoshin Kanri is Japanese. Hoshin is often translated as “shining needle” or compass, and kanri means management. In English it is usually called strategy deployment or policy deployment.
When should we start Hoshin planning for 2027?
Now. You want leaders aligned and the plan cascaded before January, so the first monthly review happens in the first weeks of the year.
What is catchball in Hoshin Kanri?
Catchball is the back-and-forth between leaders and teams on targets and plans. Leaders propose, teams respond with what they can commit to and what they need, until the plan fits both the business and the operation.
Sources
Deploy Your Strategy With Hoshin Kanri
Lean Enterprise Institute: Hoshin Kanri
Deploy your 2027 strategy
If you want your leadership team aligned on one plan before January, let’s talk about running Hoshin Kanri for 2027.
Talk with Incito about strategy deployment