Guide with a worked example
Cascading goals and goal alignment: from the company to each person
Short answer
Cascading goals means turning a company goal, level by level, into a goal each facility, department and person can act on. Each level's number adds up to the one above. Goal alignment is the result: every piece of improvement work traces to a company goal, and the work that does not is visible.
Last updated:
- Company
Unplanned downtime from 1,800 to 1,200 hours a year across the three plants
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, all plants
- Facility
Plant 2: unplanned downtime from 700 to 450 hours a year, with the press shop first
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, Plant 2
- Department or team
Press shop: unplanned press downtime from 320 to 180 hours a year; PMs completed on schedule from 68% to 95%
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, presses 1 to 4
- Person
Maintenance planner: next week's PM schedule issued by Thursday in 100% of weeks, from 55%
Measured by: Weeks with the schedule out by Thursday
The definition
What are cascading goals?
Cascading goals is the practice of translating a company goal into a goal for each level below it: company to facility, facility to department or team, department to person. Each level keeps the measure it can move and the share of the number it owns, so a person can trace their key result back to the company goal in three steps.
Most companies believe their strategy is understood. In a 2018 MIT Sloan Management Review study of 124 organizations, only 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for carrying out strategy could list three of their company's strategic priorities. If the people running it cannot name it, the people on the floor are working from something else: last year's targets, the loudest customer, the project that is already funded (Sull, Sull and Yoder, MIT Sloan Management Review, 2018 (opens in a new tab)).
A cascade fixes that only when it is a translation, not a copy. A company goal pasted onto every facility's scorecard is still the company's goal. The facility's version has to name the lines, the number and the owner, and the department's version has to be something a team leader can see on Monday. Translation takes a round of catchball; a copy takes an email.
Three words, three jobs
Cascading vs aligning vs catchball: what is the difference?
Cascading is the top-down handoff: a goal goes down and each level receives its share. Aligning is the state you want: every goal and initiative links to a company goal, written in either direction. Catchball is how the cascade becomes two-way: each level replies with what it can commit to, and the goal changes if the replies do not add up.
| Aspect | Cascading | Aligning | Catchball |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The top-down handoff of a goal, level by level | The state where every goal and initiative traces to a company goal | The two-way round that agrees a goal between levels |
| Direction | Down | Either: top-down goals, bottom-up proposals, both linked | Down, then back up, then down again |
| What each level does | Receives its share of the number | Links its own goals and work to the level above | Replies: adopt it, write our own version, or explain why it does not apply |
| Fails when | The goal is copied, not translated | Work is linked to goals after the fact to look aligned | Leaders send the draft as a decree, or never read the replies |
| What you see at the end | A goal at every level | A short Other list | An owner who agreed at every level |
Catchball comes from hoshin kanri; the catchball section of the hoshin kanri guide walks through the round step by step, and the post on the catchball process goes deeper.
Company to person
How many levels should goals cascade through?
Four levels is enough for most manufacturers: the company sets the goal and the KPI it is measured by; each facility adopts it or writes its own version with its share of the number; each department or team takes the part it can move; one person owns each key result. More levels and the chain goes slack in the middle.
- Company
Unplanned downtime from 1,800 to 1,200 hours a year across the three plants
The goal for the year, the KPI it is measured by, the owner and why it matters.
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, all plants
- Facility
Plant 2: unplanned downtime from 700 to 450 hours a year, with the press shop first
Adopts the goal as written, or writes its own version with its share of the number and its lines named.
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, Plant 2
- Department or team
Press shop: unplanned press downtime from 320 to 180 hours a year; PMs completed on schedule from 68% to 95%
The part of the facility goal it can move, in its own words, with one or two key results.
Measured by: Unplanned downtime, hours, presses 1 to 4
- Person
Maintenance planner: next week's PM schedule issued by Thursday in 100% of weeks, from 55%
One or two key results that are theirs alone, which the team's number depends on.
Measured by: Weeks with the schedule out by Thursday
Company
The goal for the year, the KPI it is measured by, the owner and why it matters.
Facility
Adopts the goal as written, or writes its own version with its share of the number and its lines named.
Department or team
The part of the facility goal it can move, in its own words, with one or two key results.
Person
One or two key results that are theirs alone, which the team's number depends on.
A worked example
A worked cascade: one goal through four levels
One company goal, unplanned downtime from 1,800 to 1,200 hours a year across three plants, cascaded to each plant's share, then to the press shop at one plant, then to the maintenance planner's key result. The plant shares add up to the company numbers, and the planner's measure is one she alone controls. Illustrative figures.
- CompanyOperations director
Cut unplanned downtime by a third: Unplanned downtime, hours a year, all plants, 1,800 to 1,200
- Unplanned downtime is the largest single reason the company misses deliveries and pays overtime.
- Facilities
Three shares that add up
- Plant 1: 600 to 420 hours. Adopt as written. Takes a 30% cut, the same share as the company.
- Plant 2: 700 to 450 hours. Write own version. Takes a larger cut because the press shop has the most hours to recover.
- Plant 3: 500 to 330 hours. Write own version. Takes a slightly larger cut on its two oldest lines.
- DepartmentPress shop, Plant 2
Keep the four presses on their PM schedule and stop repeat failures
- Unplanned downtime, presses 1 to 4: 320 hours a year to 180 hours a year
- Preventive maintenance completed on schedule: 68% to 95%
- PersonMaintenance planner, Plant 2
One key result that is hers alone
- Weeks with next week's PM schedule issued by Thursday: 55% to 100%
- 1
Company: the goal and its KPI
Unplanned downtime from 1,800 to 1,200 hours a year across three plants. That is 600 hours off, or a third of 1,800 (600 divided by 1,800 is 0.33). Measured by one KPI, owned by the operations director.
- 2
Facilities: three shares that add up
Plant 1 goes from 600 to 420, Plant 2 from 700 to 450 and Plant 3 from 500 to 330. Today's figures add to 1,800 (600 plus 700 plus 500) and the targets add to 1,200 (420 plus 450 plus 330). Plant 1 adopted the goal as written; Plants 2 and 3 wrote their own version in catchball, and Plant 2 took a bigger share because its press shop has the most hours to recover.
- 3
Department: the part it can move
Plant 2's press shop owns 320 of the plant's 700 hours and commits to 180, a cut of 140 hours. That is more than half of Plant 2's 250-hour reduction (700 minus 450), which is why the plant manager put the press shop first. Its second key result, PMs on schedule from 68% to 95%, is the leading measure.
- 4
Person: one number that is theirs alone
The maintenance planner cannot promise downtime hours; too many hands touch that. She can promise that next week's PM schedule is out by Thursday every week, from 55% of weeks today. If that key result hits and PM completion still does not move, the problem is somewhere else, and the review knows where to look next.
- 5
Back up the chain
Each level reports its own number at its own review. The press shop's hours roll into Plant 2's, Plant 2's into the company's. Nobody re-keys a figure, and when the company KPI is red, the grid shows which plant, and the plant's grid shows which department.
The alignment measure
How do you see work that is not aligned with the goals?
List every live initiative, project and kaizen in one place and ask which goal each one serves. Anything with no answer goes in a list called Other. The length of that list is the alignment measure: a long Other list means the plant is busy on things nobody chose. Review it monthly and either link, stop or consciously keep each item.
- PM schedule standard for presses 1 to 4Maintenance plannerServes: Cut unplanned downtime by a third
- SMED on Press 2EngineeringServes: Cut unplanned downtime by a third
- Error-proofing at final testQualityServes: Ship nothing the customer has to sort
- Near-miss reporting on every shiftEHSServes: Nobody goes home hurt
- New canteen layoutFacilitiesServes no company goal
- Visitor badge printerReceptionServes no company goal
- Line 4 relabelling for a new customerProductionServes no company goal
Reviewed monthly: link it to a goal, stop it, or keep it and say why.
- 1
List everything that is live
Projects, kaizens, A3s, capital requests, the things the CI team is doing this month. If it has a person's time against it, it is on the list.
- 2
Ask one question of each
Which company goal does this serve? One answer per item. Serves everything is the same as serves nothing.
- 3
Put the rest in Other
Some of it belongs there: a legal requirement, a customer demand, a repair. The point is not that Other is empty; it is that Other is visible and chosen.
- 4
Review Other monthly
For each item: link it to a goal it genuinely serves, stop it, or keep it and say why. A list that grows every month means the goals are not the ones the plant is actually working on.
What goes wrong
Cascading goals anti-patterns
The copied goal
The company goal appears word for word on every facility scorecard. Nobody translated it, so nobody owns it. A facility's version names its lines and its share of the number.
The cascade that stops at the plant manager
Goals reach the plant leadership team and stay there. The floor sees the same posters as last year. Cascade at least to the department, and name the person for each key result.
Shares that do not add up
Three plants each take a 20% cut on a company goal of 33%, and the gap is found in December. Add the facility targets before the goals are fixed; if they fall short, catchball is not finished.
Alignment by relabelling
Every existing project is tagged to a goal the week before the review. The Other list is empty and nothing has changed. Alignment means some work stopped.
Too many levels
Company, region, division, plant, department, cell, person: by the sixth level the goal has been rewritten six times and means something different at each. Four levels, and a person who can see the company goal from their own.
Catchball with no reply date
The draft goes down and comes back when it comes back, which is after the year has started. Set a reply-by date two to three weeks out and fix the goals the week after it.
Keeping it alive
What does the monthly review rhythm look like?
One rhythm with four beats a month: the KPIs close in the first week; departments review their goals in the second; the plant reviews in the third, against the bowling chart; the company reviews in the fourth. Each review passes up only what it cannot fix. Quarterly, the company steps back and asks whether the goals are still the right ones.
- Week 1KPI owners
The month closes: every KPI gets its actual against plan.
Passes up: Nothing yet; the numbers are made ready.
- Week 2Departments and teams
Their own goals and key results, red or green, and the countermeasure for each red.
Passes up: A red the department cannot fix alone.
- Week 3Plant leadership
The bowling chart for the plant and each department's reds, plus the Other list.
Passes up: A goal the plant will miss for the year, with its reason.
- Week 4Company leadership
Goals by facility: which plant is Met, which is Missed, which has missed two months running.
Passes up: Nothing; this is where the decision is made.
Every quarter, the company review adds a step back: are these still the right goals, and is the Other list telling us something? Changes to a goal are made here, with the reason written down, and nowhere else. The hoshin kanri review cycles post covers the monthly and quarterly reviews in depth, and the tiered meetings page covers the daily and weekly meetings underneath them.
Sources
- Sull, Sull and Yoder, No One Knows Your Strategy, Not Even Your Top Leaders, MIT Sloan Management Review, 2018 (opens in a new tab)124 organizations, 4,012 respondents: 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for carrying out strategy could list three of their company's strategic priorities.
- Josh Howell, Expanding the Purpose of Catchball, Lean Enterprise Institute, 2022 (opens in a new tab)Catchball as the back-and-forth that improves the plan and builds problem-solving in the people who reply.
- Lean Enterprise Institute: hoshin kanri (opens in a new tab)The lexicon entry: linking each level's work to the company's goals.
In LeanSuite
Cascading goals in LeanSuite
LeanSuite's Strategy module is built around this cascade.
Four levels, one starting point
Everything starts from the company's OKRs, X-matrix or hoshin kanri plan, then cascades to each facility, then to each department or team, then to the individual person.
A cascade with a reply-by date and three replies
A company goal is cascaded to the facilities you choose, or from a facility to its teams, with a message and a reply-by date. Each one replies: adopt it as written, write its own version (a goal of its own with the company goal as its parent) or mark it not applicable and say why. Requests show as pending or answered.
Goal health, by facility
Goal health is a grid of company goals by facility for the last closed month, each cell Met, Missed, No facility KPI or Not judged, with counts of goals missed this month, missed two or more months in a row and goals without a KPI.
Initiatives connected to the goal they serve, or in Other
Kaizen projects are tagged to the goal they serve, and a goal lists the projects, work orders, best practices and issues that support it. An initiative that serves no company goal goes in Other, so everyone can see whether they are working on something the company chose.
A company goal, Deliver on time, in full, measured by On-time in-full delivery (OTIF) %, cascaded to three facilities. Plant 1 adopted it as written, Plant 2 wrote its own version and Plant 3 marked it not applicable.
- Measured by
- On-time in-full delivery (OTIF) %
- Owner
- Operations director
- Why it matters
- Late and short deliveries are the complaint our largest customers raise most.
- Plant 1Adopt as written
Uses the company goal unchanged, measured by the same KPI.
- Plant 2Write own version
Deliver on time, in full from the finished goods warehouse
A facility goal with the company goal as its parent. Recommended.
- Plant 3Not applicable
This site ships only to the other two plants, so customer OTIF does not apply here.
- Adopt as written
- Write own version
- Not applicable
See it on your own goals
Try the interactive demo in your browser with sample data, or pilot LeanSuite on your own lines for 90 days, with the setup done by our team.
Read more on cascading goals
- Hoshin kanri: meaning, the 7 steps and a filled X-matrix exampleThe method the cascade comes from, with catchball and the bowling chart.
- OKR meaning and OKR examples for manufacturingEight worked OKRs, each cascaded to a department and a person.
- OKR vs KPI, and where hoshin kanri fitsWhen to use which, and how to nest them by rhythm.
- Catchball process: how hoshin kanri aligns strategy across teamsThe two-way round in more depth.
- Tier boards: cascading daily management in manufacturingHow the daily boards carry a goal's share down to the area.
- Free X-matrix templatePDF and Excel, with a bowling chart for the monthly review.
- Strategy map: examples, the four perspectives and how to build oneThe reasoning behind the goals that get cascaded.
FAQ
Questions about cascading goals and alignment
Cascading goals is the practice of translating a company goal into a goal for each level below it: company to facility, facility to department or team, department to person. Each level keeps the measure it can move and its share of the number, so the facility targets add up to the company target and a person can trace their key result back to the company goal.
Cascading is the top-down handoff: a goal goes down and each level takes its share. Alignment is the state you want at the end: every goal and every initiative links to a company goal, whichever direction it was written in, and the work that does not is visible in an Other list. You can cascade without aligning (copied goals) and align without cascading (bottom-up goals that are linked up).
Catchball is the back-and-forth that turns a cascade into an agreement. Leaders send a draft goal down with a reply-by date; each level replies with what it can commit to, what it needs, or why the goal does not apply; leaders adjust the goal or find what is missing; and it goes round until every target has an owner who agreed to it. It comes from hoshin kanri.
Four for most manufacturers: company, facility, department or team, person. Each level translates the goal into its own words and its own number. With more levels the goal gets rewritten too many times and the person at the bottom can no longer see the company goal from their own.
Both, in that order. The company sets the few goals for the year and the KPI for each; facilities and departments write their own version, propose their own goals and say what they need. Catchball is where the two meet. Pure top-down produces compliance; pure bottom-up produces departments pulling the same line in two directions.
List every live initiative, project and kaizen and ask which company goal each one serves. Anything with no answer goes in Other. Review the Other list every month: link each item to a goal it genuinely serves, stop it, or keep it and say why. A long or growing Other list means the plant is busy on things nobody chose.
Yes, at the quarterly step back, with the reason written down, and not at the monthly review when a number goes red. A red month gets a countermeasure, not a smaller target. If the target was wrong, say so once, at the step back, and record why, so the miss is not hidden.
The company goal for the year and its KPI stay fixed. Each facility and department writes quarterly OKRs that are its step toward that goal: an objective in its own words and key results using the same KPI, with a baseline and a quarter-end target. The person level owns one or two key results. The OKR guide works through eight examples this way.
In LeanSuite everything starts from the company's OKRs, X-matrix or hoshin kanri plan, then cascades to each facility, then to each department or team, then to the person. A company goal is cascaded to chosen facilities, or from a facility to its teams, with a message and a reply-by date. Each one adopts it as written, writes its own version with the company goal as its parent, or marks it not applicable. Goal health shows the goals by facility as Met or Missed each month, kaizen projects are tagged to the goal they serve and an initiative that serves no goal goes in Other.
Want every plant and team to see the goal it serves?
Bring this year's goals, and we will show you on a call how they cascade to each facility, team and person in LeanSuite.