Catchball

Overview
One of the key concepts that makes Hoshin Planning so powerful is known as catch ball which
gets its name from the idea of two people throwing a ball back and forth much like you see
when two people play catch with a baseball.

The basic idea of catch ball is that managers define WHAT the objective is. Once this is done
they then collaborate with their subordinates on HOW the objective will be met. So, as we
see in this graphic the catch ball process really follows the down-up-down process.

In other words, the CEO's policy and objectives are passed down to senior executives who
then review the objectives and offer suggestions on how the objective can be met back up to
the CEO. The CEO can then offer their thoughts on what he or she thinks of the ideas. And
once the CEO and senior executives are both satisfied action plans are documented in the
applicable parent or child A3.

Of course the senior executive then starts his or her own version of catch ball with their
department managers and the process continues throughout the entire organization. Now, to
be sure, the catchball process does initially take more time than the traditional method of
managers simply rolling out objectives to their teams without any interaction or discussion on
how the objectives will be met.

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But, over a longer term perspective the catchball process actually saves time through better
execution and results tracking since consensus is gained between management and their teams.

When an Executive receives objectives based on a Hoshin Planning A3 document belonging to

the CEO, the Executive will meet with his or her direct reports. The objective on the A3 will
then be broken down and delegated to each Manager creating a shared plan for how the
objective will be met.

Each of these Managers will then meet with their direct reports and perform the same process
of identifying resources, timeline, etc. These plans are reported back up the management
chain until there is buy-in and ownership of the A3 at each level.

In Treetop's situation, the catchball process was used as the 5 parent A3 Action Items were
broken down into child A3s allowing each of the 5 teams to manage their initiative while
reporting the results back up to the parent A3.

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