An Overview of Strategy Deployment

This week is Lean series week at Beyond Lean.  The blog posts will center around strategy deployment (or Hoshin Kanri).  Justin Tomac, Chad Walters, Karen Wilhelm and Tony Ferraro will be guest blogging.  This will give you different perspectives from on strategy deployment all right here at Beyond Lean.  I am really excited for this week’s series.  All the posts are great.  Enjoy!

Almost every company will say they have a strategy.  While they may have a great strategy, most companies miss out on deploying that strategy throughout their organization.

Strategy deployment is a key concept that most companies don’t execute well.  Typically, a communication goes out stating  the strategy of the company or it may even be communicated at a large town hall.  This is great, but it is only a single step in the strategy deployment process.

A great strategy deployment process starts at the top with clearly articulated goals for the company.  The executives involve senior management in the process.  They discuss what the goals should be across all parts of the organization and how their areas can help achieve those goals.

Once that has been agreed upon, then the senior management involves the middle management.  They discuss more detailed tactics on how to the middle manager’s area can help achieve the senior manager’s goals and objectives.  It is a two-way discussion with input and clarity from both levels.

This catchball or laddering conversation should happen level by level all the way down to the floor and then all the way back up to the executives.  This should happen a few times.  Not just once.

Here is a good graphic to try and depict the process:

When done well, the benefits of this are enormous.  Everyone starts to understand the strategy and how their work is helping to achieve the vision of that strategy.

The discussion that happens during the catchball phase isn’t just between a team and their manager but also between managers that are peers.  This helps to develop alignment not only up and down the organization but also across the organization.  This alignment helps determine how to use the finite pool of people and cash to best achieve the company’s goals and objectives.

In my experience, company’s that have a great strategy deployment process end up with much better results year-to-year and can sustain those results because of the clear communication and everyone understanding the importance of their work.

Does your company use strategy deployment?  How does it work?

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