The catchball session is the engine of Hoshin Kanri deployment. Named for the back-and-forth of tossing a ball, catchball is the disciplined negotiation through which an objective passes between levels until both the giver and receiver own it. It is how Lean organizations avoid the trap of strategy that is announced from the top but never truly accepted below.
Run catchball each time a Hoshin objective cascades to a new level, from leadership to value-stream owners, then from owners to teams. Use it whenever a goal is being handed down and you need genuine commitment rather than reluctant compliance. It pairs naturally with the broader practice of nemawashi, building agreement before decisions are finalized.
Keep it to the two adjacent levels: the leader passing the objective down and the people who will deliver it. Four to ten participants keeps the dialogue real. The point is a focused negotiation, not a broadcast to a large audience.
Start by sharing the parent objective with its target and rationale, then invite hard questions until intent is clear. The receiving level proposes the means, surfacing what it would actually take, and both sides negotiate targets, timeline, and resources until they reach a commitment neither party is privately resisting. Close by confirming the agreement and noting what cascades further down. The ball keeps moving until ownership is real at every level.
Make deployment a real negotiation. Run it in OrgTP and keep every cascaded objective, target, and owner connected through the chain.
90 minutes total · 5 sections
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