After the Second World War, Japan was faced with tremendous infrastructural damage and needed to begin the long, difficult process of repairing pretty much everything. During this time, Allied forces occupied Japan and oversaw the process of reparation – many American experts were enlisted to aid in the efforts to rebuild Japan’s economy and infrastructure, while at the same time ensuring no military force was re-established.

Among those enlisted was W. Edwards Deming (of the Deming Cycle and PDCA fame). One of the early goals was to begin production of new radios; the problem was, new management was unskilled, production facilities and raw materials were in short supply, and quality management was a big issue.

Long story short, Deming helped to spearhead the establishment of quality control initiatives focusing on top-level management taking responsibility for clearly defining quality policy and procedures. This kind of quality control framework came to be known as Hoshin Kanri, and it eventually proliferated beyond Japan and over to America and the rest of the globe.

A 2020 report by the IPMA Organisational Competence Baseline (IPMA OCB) explained that to execute business vision, mission, and strategy, implementation of the Hoshin Kanri approach – also referred to as Hoshin planning – is vital for lean and strategic management, and for future-proofing a business.

In this Process Street article, you will learn: What Hoshin Kanri is and its history, why you need to implement Hoshin Kanri in your business or line of work, and how you can do this using our free Hoshin Planning: Hoshin Kanri Policy Deployment Process Checklist.

You can navigate to the most relevant section for you using our quick links below. Alternatively, read on for a gentle introduction to the fundamentals of Hoshin Kanri.

• What is Hoshin Kanri and where did it come from?
• Hoshin planning and key concepts
• Main benefits of Hoshin Kanri planning
• Hoshin planning: Using Process Street to implement the Hoshin Kanri process

Let’s go explore the concept of Hoshin Kanri!
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Product roadmaps are an essential part of understanding how to align your product to a long-term vision for product-market fit. They are also one of the key deliverables for product managers and are useful to almost all teams and stakeholders.

What the product roadmap should provide:

• Clear overview of key launch dates and milestones
• Clearly communicate which teams are responsible for what
• Clearly communicate important deadlines and time allocation
• A beacon to align different teams to core company goals and objectives

What the roadmap shouldn’t include:

• Goals and objectives unrelated to the product
• Overload of information about specific product features and specifications for development
• Big Surprises
• Too much data without clear association with company goals or objectives

In this Process Street article, we’ll be looking at:

• What is a product roadmap?
• Planning the product roadmap
• Key elements of a product roadmap
• How to build a product roadmap
• Free product roadmap template
• Best practices for creating a product roadmap template
• Mistakes to avoid when building your roadmap
• More tools for product success

First off, here’s a template you can use to get started building your own product roadmap.

Product roadmap process

For those of you who came just for the template, here it is:

If you’re interested in the why behind this template design, and more insight into an effective product roadmap approach, read on!

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