I’ve mentioned and alluded to the Strategy Deployment concept of Catchball in various posts but I’ve never really described what I mean by it. This post is an attempt to fix that.
The Metaphor
Catchball is a simple metaphor for a collaboration, where a ball is thrown between people in a way that everyone is involved in the game. As part of Strategy Deployment, it is throwing a ball between members of the organisation, where the ball is an idea or proposal for change or improvement. Thus the development of an idea becomes a team sport, where everyone is involved in improving it.
The Definition
I have based my definition on the question addressed in the paper “Hoshin Kanri: Implementing the Catchball Process” by Charles Tennant and Paul Roberts. They ask “how can the consensus process known as catchball, be effectively implemented in western companies to facilitate the Hoshin Kanri method, to translate top management goals into daily working?“.
From that, I would say that Catchball is:
a consensus process to translate organisational strategy into daily tactical work
The three main pieces of that definition are about consensus, process and translation.
Concensus
Consensus means that people are agreeing to something, as opposed to consent where they are only giving permission. We want people to agree with an approach because they have been engaged in formulating it and had the opportunity to express alternative and diverse perspectives. Rather than taking an idea and watering it down until we can get permission, we challenge it an improve it until we can get agreement. The principle is that no single person has the answer, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is similar to the ideas I wrote about in a previous post on Strategy Deployment as Organisational Improv. Consensus doesn’t happen accidentally, however, which is why we need a process.
Process
Process is the intentional action we take in order to achieve consensus. Generally this is where tools such as A3s templates for backbriefing and experimenting are useful, and I often say that it is the A3s that are the ball with which we are playing Catchball. The A3s provide the focus and discipline for people to reflect on and improve ideas as they pass them around. Thus the steps of populating, reviewing and monitoring the A3s can generate consensus on what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we will know whether its is working. There is also the process of interpreting the high level goals in order to do the right work, which is the translation.
Translation
Translation is required to align strategy (e.g. top management goals) with operations (e.g. daily tactical work) in a way which avoids imposing or inflicting solutions on people, and instead enables engagement, involvement and contribution. Having a consensus process means that the translation is created by the people doing the work, and is therefore able to be applied in both directions. Translation generally happens through a nested PDSA cycle such as the one as I described in a previous post on the Dynamics of Strategy Deployment.
If we take this definition of Catchball – a consensus process to translate organisational strategy into daily tactical work – then we can start to explore alternative ways to play the game. What other processes might we use, or what other translation mechanisms are there? For example, how does Agendashift provide a consensus process for translation? This is one are I am hoping to cover in a 3-day Agendashift + X-Matrix Masterclass in Brighton in October with Mike Burrows. If you’d like to join us, follow the link for tickets.