Hoshin Kanri

Hoshin Kanri was developed by Yoji Akao in the 1950's as a collaborative method analogous to the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. It's a management technique that emphasize ongoing transparency, feedback, sharing, and gathering consensus to make improvements and sustain the gains...which is coined as the process of "catch ball" to achieve the "True North, an interpretation of the words hoshin kanri. 

What is the True North?

It's emphasis on collaboration is important since the first step is creating an achievable long-term strategic vision. This is the true north for the business. 

This critical first step needs to be right the first time to avoid restarting the process every few months or each year. 

From here the progress is measured by Key Process Indicators (KPI's). Similar to a Balanced Scorecard, it's important that these capture results that don't sub-optimize other key business metrics. 

It isn't practical to measure everything but be mindful that emphasizing too much on one (or not enough metrics) can drive behaviors that sacrifice other results that can not be sacrificed.

For example, you probably can not sacrifice safety measurables just to improve productivity. Furthermore, you probably can't improve productivity by adding a bunch of manpower (labor costs) to the same operation. 

Select the KPI's carefully and ensure they are continuous data as opposed to attribute data. 

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