Customer Reviews

Beyond Strategic Vision: Effective Corporate Action With Hoshin Planning

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Beyond Strategic Vision is a hands on book describing how youcan practically introduce hoshin planning. It describes the processfrom beginning to end. Prior to buying this book I had another hoshin book "Hoshin Kanri, Policy Deployment for successful TQM" but that one was much more abstract and theoretic. I would recommend a reader interested to learn about hoshin planning to buy Beyond Strategic Vision.

Time after time I have witnessed the application of lean or six sigma methodologies without a clear perception of how the specific initiatives align with the business strategy - often because the business strategy had never be developed to a stage where obvious connections could be made. Hoshin Kanri fills that gap by providing a means of devolving the high-level business strategies to the point where the individual tasks and projects to support them are identifiable - thereby creating the much need link between local initiatives and strategic imperatives.
The book "Beyond strategic vision" provides as good an explanation of the Hoshin Kanri method as any I have read. It explains in clear terms the process that is followed and supports the explanations with examples from the authors' experiences. The book provides of a number of example templates, and explains in detail many of the tools (an entire chapter focuses on the tools) that support the process. The great insight for me was that the tools used would probably be familiar to anybody that has experience with PDCA, Lean, TQM, Six sigma, etc., it is just that they are used in a strategic, rather than in their more typical tactical or operational, context.

This book presents a comprehensive way to create a strategic planning system. It is easy to read and has plenty of examples of Hoshin Kanri. Hoshin planning is one of the most powerful tools that I have ever used.

The authors of Beyond Strategic Vision explain that planning at several levels is a common denominator for success in any effort to change an organisation. It concepts like total quality management and process re-engineering to be used successfully. The authors explain that strategic and operational planning are powerful agents and mechanisms for setting and meeting an organisation's ambitious and exciting goals. They explain that Hoshin planning is dramatically superior to any of the other systems. The Hoshin system was developed in Japan in the 1960s and is a derivative of management by objectives.

The authors presented a clear, logical and easy to follow description of the Hoshin planning process that can assist any organisation to plan, create and implement strategies successfully.

The book focuses on how to translate an organisation's vision into action. The book explains that the Hoshin planning process is a powerful tool for putting plans into action. It provides a framework for process driven thinking that results in organisational success. The authors used their experiences in some of the best organisations in the world to explain how Hoshin planning is applied.

I have worked in a number of organisations where the top management put a lot of time and effort into formulating strategic plans. The strategic plans largely failed to be implemented and were eventually not used at all.

The attraction of Hoshin planning is that it includes the implementation or the doing of what is planned as well as the review of what has been done. The planning processes that I had grown accustomed to separate the formulation of the plans from the implementation of them. The course explains that plans are best formulated by those responsible for their implementation.

I like this book. Even though it is a few years old it gives you a good base for planning. Some of the tools and diagrams are extremely powerful.
What I like about this book is that it explains everything in simple terms so its easy to understand. It is also a quick read due to this fact.
The only drawback is that there are newer planning tools a methods that are a bit more up to date out there.
Buy it!

Beyond Strategic Vision is a great introduction to Hoshin Kanri -
the Japanese method for deploying goals and objectives throughout a company. The authors include basic tools for developing plans and walk through the use of basic forms and processes for making sure the company plan is consistently deployed throughout the firm.

Excellent reference to prepare your business strategy, it guides you step-by-step. If you want to study and began to practice this valuable tool, this book is the right answer. Focused, concrete and pragmatic.

This book is not for the faint of heart...you must really be into strategic planning and the hoshin method to enjoy it.

For those who fit this profile, it provides an in depth description of how the hoshin method of strategic planning works. I especially appreciate that it includes theory, examples, how-to information, and detailed tools descriptions.

Karen L. Jett, CMA, Author Grow Your People, Grow Your Business