There is a tendency in many organizations, when beginning the journey to become a LEAN organization, to look at the tools and start using them. There is no thread that not only holds the organization together but ties all efforts to the strategic goals of the organization. This effort creates a lot of effort but because there is no direction, much of that effort results in muda or waste.
If you want your organization, whether you are a hospital, nursing home trying to implement QAPI, a clinic or any other type of business, the place to start is the beginning. You need to,set strategic goals for the organization. Once those goals have been set by the board, senior management needs to set tactical goals that support the strategic goals. The entire management team then set specific goals for their divisions that support the tactical goals. Then specific departmental goals are set for every department.
Where do we start in terms of strategic goals? How far out should our vision reach? I worked with a physician who was a partner in a large practice that had been in existence for fifty years. He told me their strategic plan was to ensure viability of the practice for partners whose grandparents hadn’t been born yet. That’s strategic planning at its best!
What’s right for your organization is something you will need to determine. When we work with clients, we use an x matrix. It visually links every goal, from the strategic plan to specific measurable department goals. It’s a visual indicator as to how effectively our departmental goals support the strategic plan. It also gives us key performance indicators (KPI) that we can track on our gemba boards at every level in the organization.
In LEAN this process is referred to as gosh in Katrina. It comes from two Japanese words, hoshin which means shining metal or compass and kanri, which means management or control. It is commonly referred to as policy deployment.