A Brief Note on Hoshin Kanri: Strategy Deployment

Abstract

Hoshin kanri (HK), or strategy deployment, has been an integral part of the company management practices of some of the most successful Lean-practicing organizations. The purpose of this note is to give a very quick introduction to how it has been successfully used in small and medium-sized value streams to inject strategic meaning and tactical understanding to operational strategies and improvement plans. Done well, HK is an extraordinary tool to help a team develop, adjust, and communicate strategy to meet robust, long-term goals. Excerpt UVA-OM-1710 Nov. 30, 2020 A Brief Note on Hoshin Kanri: Strategy Deployment Hoshin kanri (HK), or strategy deployment, has been an integral part of the company management practices of some of the most successful Lean-practicing organizations. Done well, it is an extraordinary tool to help a team develop, adjust, and communicate strategy to meet robust, long-term goals. Hoshin (loosely translated as policy, plan, purpose, or target) is meant to encompass strategic alignment across the organization. The organization can be as large as the entire company or as small as an individual value stream. Kanri (loosely translated as control or management) is meant to indicate that this management tool is a disciplined manner of continuous improvement execution. Hoshin can be thought of as the skeleton that holds the strategy together while kanri can be thought of as the muscle that performs the task. Both must be exercised in order to have and maintain a strong body. Most importantly, HK must be grounded at gemba, intent on creating customer value, and built around continuous improvement. It should not take on a bureaucratic air of driving strategy. Mark Reich has described HK as “a mechanism, a management system that allows the organization to quickly and effectively adjust its priorities while engaging the team,” and “a systemic approach for defining a strategy, and, more importantly, a management system that engages all people to support that strategy while building horizontal and vertical alignment.” One of the keys to HK's success is its simple, easy-to-understand construct. Fundamentally, a few pages help develop and communicate what the long-term goals are, what and how the value stream plans on accomplishing them, as well as who the responsible leader is and how progress will be measured. Done well, this will end with more engagement, ownership, and accountability by all levels of the organization. . . .