Common Hoshin failures and how to spot them

Hoshin plans tend to fail in a few recognizable ways. The hard part is that a failing plan can look healthy for months. The X-matrix is on the wall, and the kickoff went well. The trouble shows up later, when a goal is missed and nobody is surprised.

Writing on Hoshin, much of it from vendors and consultants, often names four common failures. This article covers those four and adds three more that follow from how the forms and reviews work. For each one, you get the signs to look for and a check that you can run this week.

The examples come from a fictional company, a metal parts maker with 180 employees and one plant. They show the patterns. They don't report results.

1. Goals move down, and nothing comes back

If you hand goals down with no two-way conversation, the plan can look good on paper and fail on the floor. If the people on the floor never tested the plan, they don't own it.

Signs to look for:

• Objectives reach the bottom of the org chart with the same words they had at the top.
• Nobody can name a target or date that changed during planning.
• People talk about "their goals" when they mean goals from above.

At the plant: The plant manager hands the production supervisor a September date for the Line 2 scrap goal. The supervisor says nothing, even though the maintenance shutdown takes Line 2 down in May. In October, the miss surprises nobody on the floor.

Check this week: Ask three managers, "What did you change or ask for when you received your objective?" If they have no answer, you aren't running catchball.

2. The reviews stop

A plan launches with energy in January and stalls by the second quarter, because nobody scheduled the reviews. Without a rhythm of measuring and correcting, Hoshin turns into an annual planning exercise.

Signs to look for:

• The review got moved twice this quarter, and the second new date slipped too.
• The chart on the wall shows numbers from two months ago.
• Owners learn their own numbers in the meeting.

At the plant: The March review gets cancelled for a customer visit. The April review covers a quality issue instead. In May, nobody can say whether Line 2 is on target.

Check this week: Count the reviews that you held this year against the months that have passed. Then put the rest of the year's dates on the calendar. For a format, see how to run a monthly Hoshin review.

3. The plan is the budget in disguise

Hoshin is about strategic breakthroughs. It isn't financial forecasting. If you merge the two, you get a budget dressed up in strategy language.

Signs to look for:

• Every objective is a dollar figure, such as revenue, margin or cost.
• The plan comes out of the finance calendar and uses finance's categories.
• Nobody can name the change in how work gets done behind a number.

At the plant: The annual objective reads "Reduce Line 2 costs by a set dollar amount." That tells the second-shift supervisor nothing about what to do. "Cut Line 2 scrap from 4% to 3%" names something that she can go and look at.

Check this week: Read each objective and ask, "What will people do differently?" If the only answer is "spend less" or "sell more", the objective needs another round.

4. Improvement work has no line to the plan

If your kaizen events and A3s don't link to the annual objectives, you get improvement that doesn't serve the strategy. People work hard. Things get better here and there. The objectives don't move.

Signs to look for:

• Your team has many open A3s, and few of them name an objective.
• Improvement events get picked by whoever asks first.
• People can't say which objective their project serves.

At the plant: The first shift runs a well-organized event to reorganize the tool crib. Nobody questions it, and it looks good. It has no link to on-time shipments or Line 2 scrap, and two supervisors missed a week of A3 work to attend.

Check this week: List every open A3 and improvement project. Next to each one, write the objective it serves. Then ask about the blanks. This work is easy to do on an X-matrix.

5. Treating the X-matrix as proof

An X-matrix shows that a project relates to an objective. It doesn't show that the project is big enough. A page full of strong marks can still describe a plan that falls short.

Signs to look for:

• Nobody can say how much of the gap each project closes.
• Every project has a strong mark, and nobody has removed a project in years.
• The matrix gets a lot of attention in planning and none during the year.

At the plant: The on-time objective needs a gain of four points. The team has a strong mark from one project, which is the Line 2 changeover work. Nobody has asked how many of the four points that project could deliver.

Check this week: Pick one objective. Ask its owner, "If every project under this succeeds, does it close the gap? Show me how." You don't need software for this. You need the question.

6. Targets change, and the promise disappears

The bowling chart lets targets change over time, and sometimes they should. The failure comes when the new number replaces the old one, and nobody can see what was first agreed or why it moved.

Signs to look for:

• The chart never shows a miss, and the year-end number is different from the one you remember.
• A target went down, and no other row went up to cover it.
• People argue about what was agreed last spring.

At the plant: The production supervisor's June target moves from 3.3% to 3.4% after a long shutdown. That's a fair change. But the spreadsheet holds only the new number, so by December, the plant can't tell how the year's commitments moved.

Check this week: Pull the chart from the start of the year, and compare it with today's. For each changed target, ask who changed it and why. If nobody knows, start writing it down.

7. Red becomes dangerous

If people get punished for red, they stop reporting it. The chart turns green. The miss arrives anyway, but later and with less time to act.

Signs to look for:

• The chart stays green all year, and the year-end number still misses.
• Owners explain a miss for several minutes before they state the gap.
• People ask to see the numbers before the meeting, so that they can "fix" them.

At the plant: The chair criticizes the quality manager in front of the group over a red item. The next month, every row is green. The chair takes this as progress.

Check this week: Think about the last red item in your review. What happened to the person who reported it? Then ask what the others in the room learned from it.

How to use this list

Don't try to fix all seven at once. Pick the one that you can see most clearly, run its check and act on what you find. Failure 2 is usually the place to start, because without reviews, you can't see the others.

How Run Hoshin handles this

Run Hoshin speaks to failures 2, 4 and 6, and it can't promise to fix any of them. The work happens in your one-on-ones, not in a separate planning tool. An objective arrives as step 1 of an A3, which ties the A3 to a goal. When the words of a goal change, the earlier words stay in the history. History shows when work stopped, but it can't make your team start again. The app doesn't check whether your projects are big enough to close the gap. See what the app does not do yet.