Hoshin Plans for Vision Deployment

7/29/2019 Hoshin Plans for Vision Deployment

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Copyright 2013 MindGenius Ltd

Hoshin Plans for Vision Deployment

Introduction

Mind Maps are basically tree diagrams that can take on a variety of forms.

After World War 2, Japan used Tree charts (called Hoshin Plans) as a top

down management planning tool to create, drive and implement the

biggest quality revolution the world has ever seen. Hoshin Plans, which

are Mind Maps, were elevated in Japan to one of the 7 most important

Management Tools. They were used for annual strategic planning for entire companies and at lower

levels for department level strategic planning and individual project management, tracking and

execution. That detailed level of planning was seldom seen in the western world at the time and it is

still considered to be a best practice method of planning today. Mind Mapping software offers very

user-friendly and rapid creation and modification of the Plans, which was one of the original barriers

that blocked its widespread acceptance in the western world. This article will give the basics on

Hoshin Planning and show they can be created with MindGenius Mind Mapping software.

History of the Quality Revolution in Japan

It is undisputed that Japan created the biggest quality revolution that the world has probably ever

seen. This quality revolution happened after World War 2. Lean and Total Quality Management were

the top level initiatives that were used to create this quality transformation. At the core of such

successes seen in Japanese companies are a variety of tools and techniques they used. In Japan,

some of their main tools were summarized and popularized as:

7 Management Tools 7 Quality Tools 7 forms of Waste

The number 7 was often used to narrow the focus of efforts and not over-complicate attempts to

drive quality improvements, which could drive confusion and frustration amongst employees.

Without applying the 7 Management Tools, Japan's success would have been a failure. Deming and

others were instrumental in driving the quality revolution in Japan. Deming's first big activities and

presentations in Japan were to its management. He convinced them to pursue a disciplined

approach to make dramatic quality transformations a reality. After the great successes of Japan, the

western world was very eager to copy their successes but they often ignored the detailed work

required to attain such success. Many short cuts were attempted, which had limited successes or

failed. The failed attempts almost always avoided the 7 Management Tools because they seemed

too analytical and technical for western-styles of management to accept. What resulted in the

western world is a method of "Cherry Picking" of certain Lean and Quality Tools used in Japan that

would be applied in the West.


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Under-appreciated Hoshin Planning in the West

A good example of cherry-picking certain tools from Japan and avoiding others is the Hoshin Plan

Tree Diagram. This tool was very slowly adopted in the West but it is still, even today, ratherunpopular. The Deming Quality Award was started in Japan in 1950 to recognize progressive

companies who departed from traditional and ineffective ways of management to the successful

management style known as TQM (Total Quality Management). All companies who won the Deming

Award in the 70sand 80s reported that Hoshin Planning was at the center of their management

style.

The Hoshin Plan is often considered to be too detailed, difficult to create or use. It was often difficult

and time consuming to construct and modify these Plans in popular software tools such as Excel andPowerPoint. I will make the bold statement that if user-friendly software like MindGenius was

available when Hoshin Planning was first discovered in the West, the widespread use of this Planning

tool might have been more popular. I say this because this powerful and effective Plan is extremely

easy and fast to create and edit with MindGenius.

Employee Empowerment versus Management Planning

Japanese-style Employee Empowerment is also a widely misunderstood concept outside of Japan.

Too often, it is thought that employee empowerment can replace top management planning,direction and vision setting. However, empowered activities must be in line with management's top

level Vision, Goals and Objectives, not replace them to avoid uncoordinated chaos. Not every

company can afford to pursue Six Sigma quality levels targeting only 3.4 defects per million products

produced. Big problems can arise when the void of management vision and direction is filled in with

the vision of quasi-empowered employees who invent their own agenda for the company, which is

not coordinated with other employees nor management.

Hoshin Plan Basics

As shown below, such Plans can be used for top level management strategic planning and all the way

down to individual project management, planning and execution.


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A Hoshin Plan should incorporate 5 levels of detailed work breakdown structure as shown below. At

the detailed task level, personal task assignments, due dates and red, yellow and green color codes

for the status are recommended for a good Hoshin plan.

Here are some explanations of the terms used in the above graph, which are used for Hoshin

Planning.

Vision: A mental image what the desired future should look like Goal: The full set of top level targets required to support the Vision Objectives: The full set of stated intentions required to support all of the Goals Action Plans: The full set of actions required to support all of the Objectives Detailed Tasks: The full set of individual tasks required to support all of the Action Plans


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Note that the words "full set" is used often in the above list. In a good Hoshin Plan, each term to the

right of the Vision should include a full set of exhaustive intentions and activities required to support

the term to the upper left of it. What follows is a template for a 5-level Hoshin Plan created in

MindGenius software with 5 levels, with added information in the far right branch for responsible

resource, detailed task completion rate, start and completion dates and visual color codes for the

detailed task status (red, yellow or green). This example is partially visualized, only showing the

details for Goal 1. Red denotes that the plan is behind schedule. Green means that it is on schedule.

All entries on a Hoshin should be full sentences with action verbs and nouns that are fully

understandable by anyone reading the plan. At least 2 goals should be created for a vision statement

and at least 2 objectives for each goal statement and so on, all the way down to the detailed task

level. Any gaps in the tree down to the detailed task level would be a sign of a plan that is not

supported by real actions in the organization.

The following Hoshin Plan template shows what a 3 Goal Hoshin Plan could look like. The number of

sub-branches on a real Hoshin Plan will vary for each plan but they can be easily created and

modified in the Mind Mapping software. The power of the logic in a Hoshin Plan is that the creator is

motivated to ensure that each goal, objective, task and detailed task are supported with real

resourced activities and individuals. When such support is absent, it becomes very visually obvious

that the plan is not supported by all of the detailed activities and resources required to make the

activity successful.


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The next Hoshin plan shows a company vision that is at risk of being realized, due to gaps in the plan

and the amount of red for those detailed actions that are documented. Such gaps in the plan are

visually apparent on a Hoshin Plan. Other methods of strategic and project planning do not visually

highlight inadequacies in the plan as a Hoshin Plan does.


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Conclusion

Hoshin Plans are very detailed and useful company vision deployment tools that can be used to

ensure that all functional departments have their goals aligned with each other to meet the larger

vision of the company. These plans can also be used at the department and individual project level.

The true test if a Hoshin Plan is correctly completed is quite visual in nature. If there are gaps in the

plan down to the detailed task level and if resources are not assigned to detailed tasks or the status

is red, the plan is at risk of supporting the vision of the company or project. Too many current

project management techniques do not have this automatic visual feature to ensure that a project

plan is robust or not.

Documents

Hoshin Plans for Vision Deployment