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Forms & Tools

Policy Deployment Matrix /
PD Matrix

Do You Want to Settle for Just Getting a Form? | Or Do You Want to Create an Effective Strategy? | Get the PD Matrix That's Part of a Powerful System

Policy Deployment is the most underutilized continuous improvement tool, by far, relative to its potential. When the PD Matrix is combined with a cohesive CI Business Management System, PD gives an incredible advantage.

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  • Level: Advanced

    Sophisticated leadership tool to align teams.

  • Phase: 3

    Getting Started
    Phase 3 contains many leadership tools

  • Type: Form

    Resource to help you put continuous improvement concepts to use.

  • Format: Excel

    Use and edit the form on software you are already familiar with. 

  • License Type:
    Corporate

    Modify and share the form within your company.

  • License Duration:
    Permanent

    Download comes with a permanent license.

  • Access: 30 Days

    Online access to supporting content and download links. Longer access with subs.
About this Form

Improve Your Strategic Planning

Description
Key Information
Steps to Use the PD Matrix
Related Training
CI Dev System
General Info

Description

Policy Deployment, sometimes referred to as Hoshin Kanri in the Lean community, is the annual process during which an organization establishes its goals and reviews its progress towards those goals.

PD is sometimes referred to as strategic planning. While closely connected, policy deployment is just part of strategic planning. It would be more accurate to say that PD turns a strategic plan into reality.

The Policy Deployment Matrix is a core tool that…

  • Aligns the whole team towards shared goals
  • Gets people thinking in terms of processes
  • Consolidates all your planning, negotiating, and goal setting
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Policy Deployment is unique in its methodology for a few reasons.

  1. Goals are established through a 'catchball' process where teams and leaders come to an agreement on how to set the goals.
  2. Goals cascade down from a 3-5 year plan to an annual target to improvement priorities.
  3. PD is process oriented, in that any goal that is set links to specific processes that need to be improved to hit that goal.
  4. PD parcels out portions of responsibility for hitting the goal to different elements of the organization. The tools used to support policy deployment highlight those goals.

Key Information About the PD Matrix

The Policy Deployment Matrix is one of several forms used to document your strategic planning efforts. In addition to any tools you use for strategic planning and budgeting, your PD efforts will require a Policy Deployment Bowler to track progress, and a Policy Deployment Action Plan to actually accomplish your improvement priorities.

Multi-Level Tool

PD is done in a mult-level manner. At a minumum, you will have a top-level PD for the entire company, and a second-level PD for the major organizations within the company,

Covers All Gaps

Each improvement priority on your PD matrix should either have a lower-level PD item or a policy deployment action plan that combine to cover the whole gap.

Assigns Responsibility

The PD Matrix assigns responsibility to individuals within the organization for their slice of the improvement target pie.

Steps to Use the PD Matrix

The basic steps of using this form are…

  1. Develop company strategy, vision, and mission statement.
  2. Determine 3-5 year goals.
  3. Slice off an annual objective.
  4. Identify improvement priorities for each objective.
  5. Assign responsibility for each improvement priority.
  6. Set targets for each improvement priority.
  7. Cascade the objectives and improvement priorities down to the second-level PD matrix (and third level, if needed).
  8. Use catchball to gain agreement.


Related Training and Resources

As you probably inferred from this Policy Deployment Matrix being part of a system, there is a wealth of information that accompanies it.

This includes the following:

  • Policy Deployment Bowler: This tool is used to track progress towards the goals set in the PD Matrix.
  • Policy Deployment Action Plan: This tool is designed to help you track the tasks related to hitting your PD targets. It also requires that you estimate improvement progress. This estimate is what ends up on our PD Bowler. Note that very few plans should ever involve linear progress.
  • Policy Deployment Training Module: We have a system of training modules that you combine to help teams progress through the phases of building a continuous improvement system.
  • Policy Deployment Training Module Download Pack: This is a Master Black Belt resource. It allows you to download, and share training materials for the PD Module within your company.

The Continuous Improvement Development System

Nearly all of our content is part of our Continuous Improvement Development System, a step-by-step roadmap to create a business management system that fosters the continuous improvement culture it needs to thrive.

Policy Deployment is vitally important to this development and is one of the earliest tools that should be rolled out. In fact, I use this as a litmus test to see whether the company has a fighting chance at becoming a CI-oriented company. If the leadership team balks at taking on this structure early in the transition, they will be unlikely to be supportive of change later.

  • Leaders that won't embrace PD early on will likely refuse to change later when your company has invested a lot more in CIDS.
  • PD is a contract. Leaders commit to improvements, but teams also learn what the expectations are, and have a voice in setting those targets.
  • Policy Deployment is an enabler of later tools. Without it in place, there is no alignment in what you are trying to do.

General Information

Our forms and tools product line is closely associated with our Continuous Improvement Development System. There is a great deal of supporting content to enable you to put them to the best use.

Our PD forms are no different. We encourage you to look at our PD content to make sure you get the most out of these forms.

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  • This form comes with a permanent corporate license that lets you share it within your company. It is limited to a single reporting unit (usually identified by having its own president) of fewer than 20,000 people. Once you download the form, it is yours to keep. It is assigned to the company of the email in your account, or to the company designated in your account. Licenses are non-transferrable.
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Form & Supporting Lessons

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Forms & Tools

Policy Deployment Matrix /
X-Matrix

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One of the biggest challenges facing leaders in an organization is alignment. Getting the entire team focused on actions that all support a common set of goals can feel like an insurmountable barrier. 

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