Bowling charts and red items

A bowling chart is the tracking form of a Hoshin plan. It's also called a bowler chart. Objectives run down the left side. Across the right side, each period shows the target and the actual result. Each row has a named owner. If the actual hits the target, the cell shows green. If it misses, the cell shows red.

It's a simple form. What matters is what you do when a cell turns red.

What belongs on the chart

A bowling chart tracks improvement work. It isn't a KPI dashboard. This difference is easy to lose.

• Put on the chart: the measures for the objectives and priorities that you committed to change this year.
• Leave off the chart: routine measures that you watch to keep the business running, such as daily output or cash on hand. Keep those on your normal dashboards.

If your chart has 40 rows, it's probably a dashboard. A chart that holds everything can't direct attention to anything. If a routine measure goes wrong and needs a real fix, it can earn a row for the year.

How to build one

1. List the measures. Take each measure from your plan. If you use an X-matrix, these are the targets on its right side.
2. Name one owner for each row. Use one name, not a department. If two people own a row, nobody does.
3. State the starting point. Write the value at the start of the year. Without it, nobody can judge the target.
4. Set a target for each period. Don't just copy the year-end number across. Decide how you expect the number to move. If you expect slow months at first, show that in the targets.
5. Decide the direction. For each row, be clear about whether higher or lower is better. On-time shipments should go up. Scrap should go down.
6. Add a status word. Write "Met" or "Missed" in each cell, along with the color. People who can't tell red from green need the word, and so does anyone reading a black-and-white printout.

A worked example

The company is fictional. It's a metal parts maker with 180 employees, one plant and two shifts. The numbers are made up to show the method. They aren't results.

One row on the plant's chart tracks Line 2 scrap. The owner is the production supervisor. The year starts at 4.0%, and the objective is 3.0%. Lower is better. This table shows that one row as a column, with one line for each month.

Reading that one row tells you a few things. The February miss might be noise. The March miss is the second in a row, so it needs attention. April comes back to target. A single green month doesn't prove that the problem is solved, and you need to look at the next few months before you relax.

What to do with a red item

A red cell is a question. It isn't a verdict on the person. Work through these steps at the monthly review.

1. State the gap in numbers. "We're at 3.9% against 3.7%." Don't start with the explanation.
2. Say what you know about the cause. Use the data. If you don't know yet, say so, and say what you'll do to find out.
3. Name the next step, an owner and a date. Each red item leaves the meeting with these three things.
4. Check last month's next step. If the same item was red last month, ask whether last month's step happened and what it showed.

Here is what that sounded like for February at the plant. The production supervisor says: "We're at 3.9% against 3.7%. Most of our Line 2 scrap is bend-angle defects in the first hour after a changeover. The second-shift supervisor has an A3 at step 7. At the February 26 check, operators used the new setup sheet on about half of changeovers. By March 20, the first-shift lead operator will know the sheets."

That's enough. The group doesn't need 10 minutes of history.

Decide when one red becomes an A3

Not every miss deserves a full problem-solving effort. Set a rule ahead of time, so that the decision doesn't depend on who is in the room. Here are three example rules to adapt:

• One red month: The owner gives a one-line cause and next step.
• Two red months in a row: The owner starts an A3, if one isn't already open.
• Three red months in a row: The review looks at the whole A3 together and asks whether the owner needs help or a changed plan.

At the plant, the March miss triggers the second rule. The second-shift A3 was already open, so the production supervisor checks that it's the right A3. It is, and the next check date stays on the calendar.

When you can change a target

The bowling chart allows targets to change over time. Business conditions change, and a target that no longer makes sense doesn't help anyone. A customer might add a large order, or a machine might go down for a month.

The risk is that a changed target can hide a missed promise. If you overwrite the old number, nobody can see what you first agreed to. To stay honest:

• Change a target only in the open, at a review, with the owner and their manager present.
• Write down the old number, the new number, the date and the reason.
• Keep the old target visible on the chart.
• If another person or department took on part of the work, write that down too.

For example, suppose that the plant's May maintenance shutdown runs a week longer than planned, and Line 2 loses its best month for trials. The plant manager moves the June target from 3.3% to 3.4%, and the chart shows both numbers with a one-line reason. Anyone who reads the chart in December can see what happened.

Watch for a chart that's all green

A chart that's always green should worry you more than one with some red. These are the usual reasons:

• The targets were set low, so the chart measures nothing.
• People quietly change targets after the fact.
• People fear what happens when they report red.
• The measures on the chart aren't connected to the objectives.

If you suspect the third reason, look at how the last red item was handled in the meeting. What happened to that person is what everybody else will expect to happen to them.

How Run Hoshin handles this

The Run Hoshin app has no bowling chart screen and no target for each period. A goal holds one number and one date, so its light stays red until the latest reading meets that number, even while the reading improves. To track period targets, keep a bowling chart outside the app. Its KPI board shows each person's goal, the latest reading and the goals that person set below. People type readings in, or an admin imports them from a CSV file. Every goal needs a date. Reports show today or any period, and you can print them or download a CSV file. When the words of a goal change, the seat above writes a new version and gives the reason, and the earlier words stay in the history. See what the app does not do yet.