Prozanta · template
Hoshin Kanri / X-matrix
Strategy deployment on one sheet — from breakthrough goals to daily actions, with catchball
Company:
Plan period:
Prepared:
How to use this sheet
Hoshin Kanri — Japanese for compass direction, or policy management — translates the few breakthrough goals into committed objectives, initiatives and metrics at every level. The core principle is catchball: goals are thrown back and forth between levels until there is agreement on both ambition and capacity. That is the difference between a plan people have said yes to and a plan they have been sent.
The four arms are read counter-clockwise from the bottom. What matters is not the lists but the links between them. An initiative that does not link to an annual objective spends capacity on something nobody asked for. An annual objective with no initiatives is an intention. A metric that measures no initiative is a report.
South — 3–5 years
The breakthrough goals. Where should the company be in three to five years? Three to five of them, not fifteen.
West — this year
The annual objectives. What has to move this year for the breakthrough goals to be within reach?
North — initiatives
The projects and improvements that have to be carried out to reach the annual objectives.
East — metrics
The numbers that show whether the initiatives work. One metric per initiative, not a dashboard.
Step by step
- The executive team picks 3–5 breakthrough goals (South). The test: can everyone on the team name them in a lift?
- Translate them into annual objectives (West), and mark in the first cross-table which breakthrough goal each objective serves.
- Find the initiatives (North), and mark which annual objective each one moves. If there are more initiatives than owners, the plan is too big.
- Put a metric (East) on each initiative and mark the link. A metric with no initiative measures something nobody is working on.
- Run catchball down and back up, and write down what was adjusted. That log is the evidence this was not a decree.
- Review quarterly against plan, not only at year end.
Watch out
- Hoshin Kanri is a focusing tool, not a budgeting tool. Pick 3–5 goals, not 30.
- Without real catchball it is an order with a nicer name. People who were not asked do not deliver.
- Hoshin needs a nervous system to attach to. If daily management is not running, build that first — otherwise the goals have nowhere to land.
- If the middle of the cross-tables is empty, the sheet is not filled in. That is where the meaning sits.
Example
South (3 years): On-time delivery at 95 % without growing inventory.
- West (this year): Lead time in assembly down from 14 to 9 days.
- North: Changeover time on the two bottlenecks halved; planning moved from weekly to daily.
- East: Median lead time per week; share of orders delivered on the agreed date.
Method: Yoji Akao, »Hoshin Kanri: Policy Deployment for Successful TQM«, Productivity Press (1991). The compass follows the common layout: South = 3–5 year goals, West = annual objectives, North = initiatives, East = metrics, read counter-clockwise from the bottom. This sheet uses cross-tables rather than the rotated diamond, so the links can be filled in and read on paper; the content and the logic are the same. See also the method standard at prozanta.dk/en/metoder/hoshin-kanri.
South · breakthrough goals, 3–5 years
| # | Breakthrough goal | Measure | Today | In 3–5 years | Executive owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | |||||
| S2 | |||||
| S3 | |||||
| S4 | |||||
| S5 |
South × West · which breakthrough goal does each annual objective serve?
The rows are the annual objectives (West). The columns are the breakthrough goals (South) from the table above. Mark ● for a strong link and ○ for a weak one. An empty row or an empty column is a finding: that is where the chain breaks.
| West — annual objective | S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 | S5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
W1 | |||||
W2 | |||||
W3 | |||||
W4 | |||||
W5 |
West × North · which annual objective does each initiative move?
The rows are the initiatives (North). The columns are the annual objectives (West) from the table above. Mark ● for a strong link and ○ for a weak one. An empty row or an empty column is a finding: that is where the chain breaks.
| North — initiative | W1 | W2 | W3 | W4 | W5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N1 | |||||
N2 | |||||
N3 | |||||
N4 | |||||
N5 | |||||
N6 |
North × East · which initiative does each metric measure?
The rows are the metrics (East). The columns are the initiatives (North) from the table above. Mark ● for a strong link and ○ for a weak one. An empty row or an empty column is a finding: that is where the chain breaks.
| East — metric | N1 | N2 | N3 | N4 | N5 | N6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
E1 | ||||||
E2 | ||||||
E3 | ||||||
E4 | ||||||
E5 | ||||||
E6 |
Ownership and load
The fifth arm of an X-matrix is the people. Write down how many initiatives each person owns. If a name carries more than two, the plan is bigger than the organisation.
| Name | Initiatives (N#) | Count | What has to move aside to make room |
|---|---|---|---|
Catchball · what was negotiated, and what changed
If there are no lines here, there was no catchball. An empty log is itself a finding.
| Date | Which goal | Who talked | What changed, and why |
|---|---|---|---|
Prozanta Operations · prozanta.dk
Hoshin Kanri / X-matrix
Plan period: · Approved: