Kata library
Free, open-licensed continuous improvement katas
Every kata ships with a companion guide: what it is, when to use it, and where artificial intelligence (AI) can help once you’re ready to customise it. Browse curated playbooks for common workflows, or explore every kata grouped by where it sits in the continuous-improvement loop — orient, understand the customer, see the work, set direction, solve problems, run the day, improve, sustain.
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Kaizen Process Katas
Kaizen Process and Sustainment is a collaborative, rapid-improvement methodology that engages cross-functional teams to eliminate waste and optimize targeted workflows, followed by disciplined daily management and audits to ensure the gains are permanently embedded into standard practice.
Kaizen events
Kaizen funnel
A portfolio-level view of every improvement idea moving toward becoming a scheduled kaizen event — which stage each one is in, which are going stale, and honestly flagging any idea nobody's actually championing yet.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Kaizen event charter
The opportunity, the objective, who's on the team, and whether you're actually ready to start — one document, not three you'd have to keep in sync, with a readiness checklist you check off before the event begins.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Gemba interview protocol
A question bank for interviewing someone while watching them do real work — built around what's observed in the moment, not recalled afterward, with reminders for staying out of the way of the work itself.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Affinity diagram
A workshop-style synthesis of curated customer notes into themed clusters — the same clustering discipline as sticky notes on a wall, done in minutes with the tally and vital-few themes computed for you.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Implementation plan
Milestones toward a real completion date, each owned by your own team, an outside party, or both — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted: a plan where every milestone belongs to your own side isn't actually cross-functional.
View guide →
Transactional Process Improvement (TPI)
Identify and remove waste in an office or knowledge-work process, using the same lean fundamentals a shop-floor kaizen event runs -- charter the initiative, follow a real case through the process with a Makigami process map to see who does each step, what it touches and where it waits or comes back, tag the real waste by category, check the numbers for the whole flow with a value stream map when the problem spans several processes, root-cause the specific bottleneck, plan the fix, and confirm it holds weeks later.
Kaizen events
Kaizen event charter
The opportunity, the objective, who's on the team, and whether you're actually ready to start — one document, not three you'd have to keep in sync, with a readiness checklist you check off before the event begins.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Makigami process map
Zoom into one office or service process to see why it's slow or error-prone: follow a real case through every person, handoff, document and system, with lead time, handoffs, re-keying and first-pass yield computed. Use it when a value stream map points at a problem process, or for any process full of approvals and rework.
View guide →
Foundations
Eight wastes (DOWNTIME) worksheet
A structured waste walk against the eight DOWNTIME categories — Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-utilized talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Extra-processing — tallied by category so the vital few show up, with any category nobody actually looked for named honestly.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Value stream map — current and future state
See where a whole value stream is choked, from customer request to delivery across departments: the map is drawn from what you measured, with lead time, flow efficiency, takt and the real constraint computed, and a future state to compare. Start here for the big picture; zoom into one problem process with a Makigami.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
A3 problem solving
Structured problem solving on one page: background, a Pareto-driven root cause chain, and a tested countermeasure tracked against a target, actual, gap and standard (TAGS) scorecard.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Implementation plan
Milestones toward a real completion date, each owned by your own team, an outside party, or both — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted: a plan where every milestone belongs to your own side isn't actually cross-functional.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Sustainment audit
Whether a kaizen event's commitments actually held after it closed — a checklist against the specific practices it was supposed to leave behind, honestly naming which are at risk of lapsing.
View guide →
Hoshin Kanri - Policy Deployment - Align Targets Across the Organization
Hoshin Kanri is a structured strategic deployment process that cascades breakthrough organizational objectives into measurable, aligned targets and actionable initiatives across every tier of the company.
Hoshin Kanri
Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix
Connect long-term breakthrough objectives to this year's targets, the strategies that will move them, and the metrics that prove it — with a specificity check that pushes back on vague plans instead of formatting them.
View guide →
Hoshin Kanri
Revenue Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix
The same X-Matrix discipline connecting long-term revenue direction to this year's targets, the strategies that will move them, and the metrics that prove it — with catchball forcing real negotiated numbers instead of a target set once at an offsite and never pressure-tested.
View guide →
Voice of Customer (VOC) Collection, Analysis and Insights
Voice of the Customer (VOC) is a structured methodology that systematically captures, analyzes, and translates qualitative and quantitative customer feedback into actionable insights to guide product innovation, process improvement, and strategic decision-making.
Voice of the customer
Voice of the customer (VOC) collection plan
Which methods, owned by whom, how often, keep the VOC evidence log fed — a real plan tying interviews, gemba sessions, and other collection activities to the specific questions you want VOC evidence to answer.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Voice of the customer (VOC) evidence log
A running log of customer quotes and observations, each tagged with a theme — drafted for you, yours to edit — so you can see at a glance which few things customers are actually telling you, not just a pile of unsorted notes.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Customer interview guide
A topic-by-topic question bank for a general customer-discovery interview — open-ended questions with real follow-up probes, drafted from your research goal and yours to edit before you take it into the room.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Gemba interview protocol
A question bank for interviewing someone while watching them do real work — built around what's observed in the moment, not recalled afterward, with reminders for staying out of the way of the work itself.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Win-loss interview guide
A question bank for interviewing a buyer after a deal has closed, won or lost — built around the real decision factors and the competitive alternative, not a sanitized recap.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Affinity diagram
A workshop-style synthesis of curated customer notes into themed clusters — the same clustering discipline as sticky notes on a wall, done in minutes with the tally and vital-few themes computed for you.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree
Translates a customer need into specific, measurable requirements — need, then the drivers that make it satisfied, then a concrete measurable target for each — with any need still missing a real specification named plainly.
View guide →
Problem Solving Process (PSP) - Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle
The Problem Solving Process (PSP) is a disciplined, iterative framework grounded in the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle that systematically guides teams from defining a performance gap and identifying root causes to implementing, verifying, and standardizing sustainable countermeasures.
Problem solving / root cause analysis
A3 problem solving
Structured problem solving on one page: background, a Pareto-driven root cause chain, and a tested countermeasure tracked against a target, actual, gap and standard (TAGS) scorecard.
View guide →
Problem definition
Scoping canvas
A one-page, multi-section definition of what an initiative actually covers — problem, goal, in scope, out of scope, team, timeline, assumptions — before anyone starts work on it.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Implementation plan
Milestones toward a real completion date, each owned by your own team, an outside party, or both — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted: a plan where every milestone belongs to your own side isn't actually cross-functional.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Mutual action plan
The implementation-plan discipline pointed at a deal instead of an internal rollout: milestones toward the target close date, each owned by you, the buyer, or jointly — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted, so a one-sided plan can't quietly pass as a real mutual commitment.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Deal A3 — win-rate root cause analysis
The same A3 discipline applied to a losing pattern in the pipeline instead of a shop-floor problem: a Pareto over loss reasons, a root cause chain that survives scrutiny, and countermeasures a sales leader can actually act on.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
A structured failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) that scores each way a process or product could fail on severity, occurrence, and detection, looks at severity first, and ranks the rest by a risk priority number so the vital-few risks get acted on first.
View guide →
Value Stream Mapping - Identify Wastes and Opportunities for Improvement
Map how work flows from customer request to delivery, then find out why it gets stuck. Start with the value stream map to see the whole flow across departments -- lead time, takt, the real constraint and where work waits -- and design its future state. When one process in that flow is the problem but nobody can say why, zoom in with a Makigami process map: follow a real case through every handoff, document and system to find the waits, re-keying and rework.
Value stream mapping
Value stream map — current and future state
See where a whole value stream is choked, from customer request to delivery across departments: the map is drawn from what you measured, with lead time, flow efficiency, takt and the real constraint computed, and a future state to compare. Start here for the big picture; zoom into one problem process with a Makigami.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Makigami process map
Zoom into one office or service process to see why it's slow or error-prone: follow a real case through every person, handoff, document and system, with lead time, handoffs, re-keying and first-pass yield computed. Use it when a value stream map points at a problem process, or for any process full of approvals and rework.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Sales funnel value stream map
The same value stream discipline applied to a sales pipeline: real stage-to-stage timing from your customer relationship management (CRM) system, computed flow efficiency, and a ranked list of exactly which stage is choking the funnel — stalled deals as work in progress, conversion as first-pass yield.
View guide →
Standard Work - Standard Operating Procedure Development
Standard Work is a foundational continuous improvement process that establishes, documents, and maintains the most efficient, repeatable sequence of operations to eliminate variation, ensure consistent quality, and serve as the baseline for future improvements.
Standard work
Work instruction
Major steps, each with a key point for how to do it right and the reason it matters — the classic job-instruction shape, so a routing rule or a new process actually works the same way no matter who's running it.
View guide →
Standard work
Standard work audit
Whether a work instruction is actually being followed weeks after it was written — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to standard work instead of a kaizen event.
View guide →
Daily management
Leader standard work
A leader's own daily routine, in the same steps/key-points/reasons shape as a work instruction — what keeps a key performance indicator (KPI) tree, a training matrix, and a kaizen event's gains from quietly decaying once the excitement wears off.
View guide →
Daily and Visual Management Katas
Run the work period by period so problems surface while they are still small. Five katas stand the practice up: pick the few measures this team can actually move, put them on a grid where green met the rule and red missed it, hold the short meeting that makes the grid worth marking, do something about the reds and check the fix actually held, and agree what happens when the team cannot close something itself. The rest are for once that is running and you want it to survive -- finding the causes that keep coming back, working one properly, connecting the levels, and an honest look at whether any of it is still alive a quarter later.
Daily management
Key performance indicator (KPI) tree
Goals, the driver metrics that actually move them, and a checkable target with a review cadence for each — a huddle board's metric tree, honestly flagging any goal with no real target yet.
View guide →
Daily management
Performance grid
The few measures that say whether the period just gone was run properly, one square each: green if it met the rule, red if it missed, blue if the number isn't in — every red gets a reason the same period, and repeat reasons earn a problem-solving cycle. Often built on the safety, quality, delivery, inventory and productivity (SQDIP) rows, though any critical few will do.
View guide →
Daily management
Daily management huddle
The short standing meeting where a team reads its board, surfaces what stopped the work, and leaves with names against problems — plus the handful of numbers that tell you whether the huddle is still working or has quietly become a status meeting.
View guide →
Daily management
Countermeasure log
What is being done about the causes behind the reds, and whether it held: every entry marked as containment or a permanent fix, with the outcome it was supposed to produce written before it was tried — and a flag on every closure the cause outlived.
View guide →
Daily management
Escalation matrix
A severity-by-severity response plan — definition, response target, escalation trigger, and a named first responder — honestly flagging any severity nobody's actually assigned to yet.
View guide →
Visual management
Visual board design guide
What a visual board should show, how often, and who keeps it current — a worksheet specifying content and ownership, not a rendered board layout.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Pareto chart
Count a problem, split it into categories on purpose, and rank them largest first with a running cumulative percentage, so you can see whether a few categories carry most of it. Then split the top bar again before acting. The ranking, the vital few and the warnings (too little data, a big Other bar, no clear vital few) are computed, not typed in.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
A3 problem solving
Structured problem solving on one page: background, a Pareto-driven root cause chain, and a tested countermeasure tracked against a target, actual, gap and standard (TAGS) scorecard.
View guide →
Daily management
Tiered huddle board
A cascading structure of standing huddles — what each tier reviews, and the concrete condition that escalates something to the tier above — honestly flagging any tier nobody's actually named to run yet.
View guide →
Daily management
Leader standard work
A leader's own daily routine, in the same steps/key-points/reasons shape as a work instruction — what keeps a key performance indicator (KPI) tree, a training matrix, and a kaizen event's gains from quietly decaying once the excitement wears off.
View guide →
Daily management
Performance board
The year-long view, not the period-by-period one: a bowler chart for the vital few key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter to a function. Each measure gets three rows — Target, Actual and Gap — running from the jump-off point (JOP) it started at, across every period of the year, to a year-to-date (YTD) column at the end. Only the Actual row is coloured, computed from real numbers rather than asserted, and every red gets containment and a note on what's being done, closing the loop into an abnormality log and a countermeasure register. For whether the period just gone met its rule, that is the performance grid.
View guide →
Visual management
Visual management audit
Whether a visual board's zones are actually staying current weeks after it was designed — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to a visual board instead of a kaizen event.
View guide →
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Definition
A structured, iterative practice for rapidly testing hypotheses and systematically refining the attributes of your highest-value target customers to maximize commercial focus and growth.
Problem definition
Ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas
The scoping canvas's one-page, multi-section discipline pointed at defining who the ideal customer actually is — firmographics, technographics, buying triggers, buying-committee roles, and pain/use-case fit, grounded in real deal evidence rather than assumption.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Ideal customer profile (ICP) evidence log
The voice-of-the-customer (VOC) evidence log's theme-clustering discipline pointed at win/loss call notes and discovery excerpts instead of product feedback — turning a scattered set of deal-pattern observations into the vital-few signals that should actually shape the ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas and anti-ICP.
View guide →
Problem definition
Anti-ideal customer profile (anti-ICP)
The scoping canvas's one-page, multi-section discipline pointed at who not to pursue — hard disqualifiers that should end a deal outright, softer red flags worth a specific countermeasure instead of an automatic pass, process red flags, and real churn-pattern evidence, not a mirrored ICP canvas with the polarity flipped.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Total addressable market (TAM) coverage map
How much of your total addressable market is even tracked as a target account, and, within what's tracked, how completely each account's buying-group roles have a real named contact — both computed, not asserted, with dark accounts and systemically-missing roles flagged plainly.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Fit-criteria scorecard
The weighted decision matrix discipline pointed at prospect accounts: score each one against firmographic fit, technographic fit, trigger strength, and buying-committee access, and let a computed composite score and tier — not a gut feel — say which account actually deserves the next call.
View guide →
Standard work
Qualification standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at qualifying a lead against the ideal customer profile (ICP): major steps — firmographic fit, a real trigger, anti-ICP disqualifiers, budget-authority path — each with a key point for the technique and the reason it matters, so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep is running them.
View guide →
Value Messaging - Value Selling Katas
A disciplined, repeatable practice for uncovering critical customer problems, quantifying their business impact, and articulating differentiated value so commercial teams can consistently win on ROI rather than price.
Voice of the customer
Value hypothesis
The critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree's need-driver-measure discipline pointed at a deal instead of a product: what the buyer actually needs, why what you sell addresses it, and a specific number that proves the value rather than asserts it — with any need still missing a real proof point named plainly.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Deal A3 — win-rate root cause analysis
The same A3 discipline applied to a losing pattern in the pipeline instead of a shop-floor problem: a Pareto over loss reasons, a root cause chain that survives scrutiny, and countermeasures a sales leader can actually act on.
View guide →
Standard work
Discovery call standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at a sales discovery call: major steps, each with a key point for the technique that surfaces real information and the reason it matters — so the compelling event and real decision process get found regardless of which rep is on the call.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Proof point inventory
The evidence register discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which claims are actually backed by real, checkable proof, and which pillars — or which specific claims — still have none, flagged plainly rather than assumed proven forever.
View guide →
Standard work
Consistency audit
Whether a message architecture's pillars are actually being said the same way across reps and channels weeks after it was written — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to messaging instead of a kaizen event.
View guide →
Experimentation
Message testing log
The learning log discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which ones actually resonate with a broader buyer audience, tested and recorded honestly, rather than assumed proven everywhere just because they worked in one deal.
View guide →
Sales Funnel Management Katas
A systematic, daily coaching and execution rhythm to identify conversion bottlenecks, improve stage velocity, and maintain pipeline hygiene across the entire buyer journey.
Value stream mapping
Sales funnel value stream map
The same value stream discipline applied to a sales pipeline: real stage-to-stage timing from your customer relationship management (CRM) system, computed flow efficiency, and a ranked list of exactly which stage is choking the funnel — stalled deals as work in progress, conversion as first-pass yield.
View guide →
Standard work
Qualification standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at qualifying a lead against the ideal customer profile (ICP): major steps — firmographic fit, a real trigger, anti-ICP disqualifiers, budget-authority path — each with a key point for the technique and the reason it matters, so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep is running them.
View guide →
Daily management
Pipeline management board
Despite the name, this is the tiered huddle cascade rather than a board of its own: what each level reviews, and the concrete condition that escalates a deal or a pattern to the level above, pointed at a sales pipeline instead of a shop floor. The board each of those levels actually stands at is the performance grid.
View guide →
Standard work
Discovery call standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at a sales discovery call: major steps, each with a key point for the technique that surfaces real information and the reason it matters — so the compelling event and real decision process get found regardless of which rep is on the call.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Win-loss interview guide
A question bank for interviewing a buyer after a deal has closed, won or lost — built around the real decision factors and the competitive alternative, not a sanitized recap.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Deal aging / work-in-progress report
Which open deals are stalled — how long each deal has sat in its current stage, each stage's average age, and exactly which deals are aging well past their peers.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Stage conversion analysis
How many deals enter each funnel stage and how many advance — per-stage conversion, rolled yield from first stage to closed-won, and exactly which stage is losing the most deals.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Deal A3 — win-rate root cause analysis
The same A3 discipline applied to a losing pattern in the pipeline instead of a shop-floor problem: a Pareto over loss reasons, a root cause chain that survives scrutiny, and countermeasures a sales leader can actually act on.
View guide →
Problem solving / root cause analysis
Fit-criteria scorecard
The weighted decision matrix discipline pointed at prospect accounts: score each one against firmographic fit, technographic fit, trigger strength, and buying-committee access, and let a computed composite score and tier — not a gut feel — say which account actually deserves the next call.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Bottleneck analysis
Which single stage is capping your funnel's throughput, and which stage deals stall at worst — from a short list of stages, no full value stream map required.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Funnel flow efficiency calculator
The single flow-efficiency number for a sales pipeline — process time as a share of total time in the funnel — from a short list of stages, no full value stream map required.
View guide →
Kaizen events
Stakeholder coverage map
How much of the population you actually need to reach is even tracked, and, within what's tracked, how completely each unit's required roles have a real named contact — both computed, not asserted, with dark units and systemically-missing roles flagged plainly.
View guide →
Daily management
Visibility board
The performance board discipline pointed at a commercial function: bookings, pipeline quality, service velocity, team productivity. The same bowler chart — Target, Actual and Gap for each measure, from its jump-off point (JOP) through every period of the cycle to a to-date column — run on a weekly cadence rather than a monthly one, computed red or green from real numbers, where every red gets containment and a note on what's being done, closing the loop into a gemba-grounded root-cause log and a countermeasure register. For a commercial team's week-by-week hit-or-miss board, that is the performance grid.
View guide →
Orient
Foundations
Lean maturity scorecard
A fixed set of capability areas scored against the standard 5-stage maturity scale (ad hoc to optimizing), each score backed by real evidence, with any area more than one stage below its own stated target flagged plainly, not smoothed over.
View guide →
Foundations
Marketing maturity assessment
The lean maturity scorecard discipline pointed at a revenue/RevOps function's real capabilities: which are genuinely managed, and which — including account intelligence and the governance to grow it — are still ad hoc underneath a healthy-looking pipeline, flagged plainly rather than assumed covered.
View guide →
Foundations
Eight wastes (DOWNTIME) worksheet
A structured waste walk against the eight DOWNTIME categories — Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-utilized talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Extra-processing — tallied by category so the vital few show up, with any category nobody actually looked for named honestly.
View guide →
Understand the customer
Voice of the customer
Voice of the customer (VOC) evidence log
A running log of customer quotes and observations, each tagged with a theme — drafted for you, yours to edit — so you can see at a glance which few things customers are actually telling you, not just a pile of unsorted notes.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Affinity diagram
A workshop-style synthesis of curated customer notes into themed clusters — the same clustering discipline as sticky notes on a wall, done in minutes with the tally and vital-few themes computed for you.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree
Translates a customer need into specific, measurable requirements — need, then the drivers that make it satisfied, then a concrete measurable target for each — with any need still missing a real specification named plainly.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Customer interview guide
A topic-by-topic question bank for a general customer-discovery interview — open-ended questions with real follow-up probes, drafted from your research goal and yours to edit before you take it into the room.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Gemba interview protocol
A question bank for interviewing someone while watching them do real work — built around what's observed in the moment, not recalled afterward, with reminders for staying out of the way of the work itself.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Win-loss interview guide
A question bank for interviewing a buyer after a deal has closed, won or lost — built around the real decision factors and the competitive alternative, not a sanitized recap.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Voice of the customer (VOC) collection plan
Which methods, owned by whom, how often, keep the VOC evidence log fed — a real plan tying interviews, gemba sessions, and other collection activities to the specific questions you want VOC evidence to answer.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Value hypothesis
The critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree's need-driver-measure discipline pointed at a deal instead of a product: what the buyer actually needs, why what you sell addresses it, and a specific number that proves the value rather than asserts it — with any need still missing a real proof point named plainly.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Message architecture
The critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree's need-driver-measure discipline pointed at your standing product message instead of a single deal: the buyer need at the top, the message pillar that addresses it, and a specific, already-proven number underneath — with any pillar that isn't proven yet named plainly rather than shipped as a confident-sounding claim.
View guide →
Voice of the customer
Ideal customer profile (ICP) evidence log
The voice-of-the-customer (VOC) evidence log's theme-clustering discipline pointed at win/loss call notes and discovery excerpts instead of product feedback — turning a scattered set of deal-pattern observations into the vital-few signals that should actually shape the ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas and anti-ICP.
View guide →
See the work
Value stream mapping
Value stream map — current and future state
See where a whole value stream is choked, from customer request to delivery across departments: the map is drawn from what you measured, with lead time, flow efficiency, takt and the real constraint computed, and a future state to compare. Start here for the big picture; zoom into one problem process with a Makigami.
View guide →
Flow and pull
Work-in-progress (WIP) aging report
Which currently-open items are stalled — how long each item has sat in its current stage, each stage's average age, and which specific items are aging well past their peers.
View guide →
Problem definition
Scoping canvas
A one-page, multi-section definition of what an initiative actually covers — problem, goal, in scope, out of scope, team, timeline, assumptions — before anyone starts work on it.
View guide →
Problem definition
Ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas
The scoping canvas's one-page, multi-section discipline pointed at defining who the ideal customer actually is — firmographics, technographics, buying triggers, buying-committee roles, and pain/use-case fit, grounded in real deal evidence rather than assumption.
View guide →
Problem definition
Anti-ideal customer profile (anti-ICP)
The scoping canvas's one-page, multi-section discipline pointed at who not to pursue — hard disqualifiers that should end a deal outright, softer red flags worth a specific countermeasure instead of an automatic pass, process red flags, and real churn-pattern evidence, not a mirrored ICP canvas with the polarity flipped.
View guide →
Problem definition
Value proposition map
A two-sided customer-profile and value-map discipline: jobs, problems, and hoped-for benefits on one side; products & services, problem fixes, and benefit claims on the other — with any benefit claim that isn't actually proven yet visible for what it is, not dressed up as a settled fact.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Sales funnel value stream map
The same value stream discipline applied to a sales pipeline: real stage-to-stage timing from your customer relationship management (CRM) system, computed flow efficiency, and a ranked list of exactly which stage is choking the funnel — stalled deals as work in progress, conversion as first-pass yield.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Makigami process map
Zoom into one office or service process to see why it's slow or error-prone: follow a real case through every person, handoff, document and system, with lead time, handoffs, re-keying and first-pass yield computed. Use it when a value stream map points at a problem process, or for any process full of approvals and rework.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Funnel flow efficiency calculator
The single flow-efficiency number for a sales pipeline — process time as a share of total time in the funnel — from a short list of stages, no full value stream map required.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Bottleneck analysis
Which single stage is capping your funnel's throughput, and which stage deals stall at worst — from a short list of stages, no full value stream map required.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Stage conversion analysis
How many deals enter each funnel stage and how many advance — per-stage conversion, rolled yield from first stage to closed-won, and exactly which stage is losing the most deals.
View guide →
Value stream mapping
Deal aging / work-in-progress report
Which open deals are stalled — how long each deal has sat in its current stage, each stage's average age, and exactly which deals are aging well past their peers.
View guide →
Set direction
Hoshin Kanri
Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix
Connect long-term breakthrough objectives to this year's targets, the strategies that will move them, and the metrics that prove it — with a specificity check that pushes back on vague plans instead of formatting them.
View guide →
Hoshin Kanri
True north statement
The ideal, not-fully-reachable direction behind a Hoshin plan, broken into its real component pillars and checked against whether current work actually traces back to each one — with any pillar nobody's moving toward flagged plainly, not smoothed over.
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Hoshin Kanri
Marketing true north statement
The true north statement discipline pointed at a revenue Hoshin plan's own stated direction: which pillars have real, committed strategies moving them this year, and which — including market reach itself — have nothing tracing to them at all, flagged plainly rather than assumed covered.
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Hoshin Kanri
Revenue Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix
The same X-Matrix discipline connecting long-term revenue direction to this year's targets, the strategies that will move them, and the metrics that prove it — with catchball forcing real negotiated numbers instead of a target set once at an offsite and never pressure-tested.
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Hoshin Kanri
Cascade map
Shows whether an X-Matrix's annual objectives actually land on someone at the level below — which are genuinely committed, which are still just a proposal, and which nobody has picked up at all.
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Hoshin Kanri
Revenue cascade map
Shows whether a revenue X-Matrix's annual objectives actually land on a real pod or function — which are genuinely committed, which are still just proposed, and which nobody has picked up at all.
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Solve problems
Problem solving / root cause analysis
A3 problem solving
Structured problem solving on one page: background, a Pareto-driven root cause chain, and a tested countermeasure tracked against a target, actual, gap and standard (TAGS) scorecard.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Deal A3 — win-rate root cause analysis
The same A3 discipline applied to a losing pattern in the pipeline instead of a shop-floor problem: a Pareto over loss reasons, a root cause chain that survives scrutiny, and countermeasures a sales leader can actually act on.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
A structured failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) that scores each way a process or product could fail on severity, occurrence, and detection, looks at severity first, and ranks the rest by a risk priority number so the vital-few risks get acted on first.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Pareto chart
Count a problem, split it into categories on purpose, and rank them largest first with a running cumulative percentage, so you can see whether a few categories carry most of it. Then split the top bar again before acting. The ranking, the vital few and the warnings (too little data, a big Other bar, no clear vital few) are computed, not typed in.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Weighted decision matrix
Score a handful of options against criteria that matter differently, with your own weights and scores summed into a single composite score and priority/consider/deprioritize tier — never asserted, always computed from what you enter.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Fit-criteria scorecard
The weighted decision matrix discipline pointed at prospect accounts: score each one against firmographic fit, technographic fit, trigger strength, and buying-committee access, and let a computed composite score and tier — not a gut feel — say which account actually deserves the next call.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Evidence register
Whether a claim already circulating is actually backed by real evidence — measured data, direct observation, a documented case — or is still just being asserted, with every claim category that has zero evidence logged flagged plainly, not smoothed over.
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Problem solving / root cause analysis
Proof point inventory
The evidence register discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which claims are actually backed by real, checkable proof, and which pillars — or which specific claims — still have none, flagged plainly rather than assumed proven forever.
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Run the day
Standard work
Discovery call standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at a sales discovery call: major steps, each with a key point for the technique that surfaces real information and the reason it matters — so the compelling event and real decision process get found regardless of which rep is on the call.
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Daily management
Performance board
The year-long view, not the period-by-period one: a bowler chart for the vital few key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter to a function. Each measure gets three rows — Target, Actual and Gap — running from the jump-off point (JOP) it started at, across every period of the year, to a year-to-date (YTD) column at the end. Only the Actual row is coloured, computed from real numbers rather than asserted, and every red gets containment and a note on what's being done, closing the loop into an abnormality log and a countermeasure register. For whether the period just gone met its rule, that is the performance grid.
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Daily management
Visibility board
The performance board discipline pointed at a commercial function: bookings, pipeline quality, service velocity, team productivity. The same bowler chart — Target, Actual and Gap for each measure, from its jump-off point (JOP) through every period of the cycle to a to-date column — run on a weekly cadence rather than a monthly one, computed red or green from real numbers, where every red gets containment and a note on what's being done, closing the loop into a gemba-grounded root-cause log and a countermeasure register. For a commercial team's week-by-week hit-or-miss board, that is the performance grid.
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Standard work
Qualification standard work
The work instruction shape pointed at qualifying a lead against the ideal customer profile (ICP): major steps — firmographic fit, a real trigger, anti-ICP disqualifiers, budget-authority path — each with a key point for the technique and the reason it matters, so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep is running them.
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Daily management
Performance grid
The few measures that say whether the period just gone was run properly, one square each: green if it met the rule, red if it missed, blue if the number isn't in — every red gets a reason the same period, and repeat reasons earn a problem-solving cycle. Often built on the safety, quality, delivery, inventory and productivity (SQDIP) rows, though any critical few will do.
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Daily management
Shift board with safety, quality, delivery, inventory and productivity rows (SQDIP)
The performance grid on a production line: one row per letter, one square per shift, coloured from the numbers rather than argued over — where a bad changeover shows up as five reds in the same shift and the reasons, not the colours, tell you it was one problem.
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Daily management
Daily management huddle
The short standing meeting where a team reads its board, surfaces what stopped the work, and leaves with names against problems — plus the handful of numbers that tell you whether the huddle is still working or has quietly become a status meeting.
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Daily management
Countermeasure log
What is being done about the causes behind the reds, and whether it held: every entry marked as containment or a permanent fix, with the outcome it was supposed to produce written before it was tried — and a flag on every closure the cause outlived.
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Daily management
Pipeline management board
Despite the name, this is the tiered huddle cascade rather than a board of its own: what each level reviews, and the concrete condition that escalates a deal or a pattern to the level above, pointed at a sales pipeline instead of a shop floor. The board each of those levels actually stands at is the performance grid.
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Standard work
Work instruction
Major steps, each with a key point for how to do it right and the reason it matters — the classic job-instruction shape, so a routing rule or a new process actually works the same way no matter who's running it.
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Standard work
Training matrix with I, L, U, O skill levels (ILUO)
Who's actually trained on what — a skill × person grid flagging any skill where nobody can work it unsupervised yet, so a single absence doesn't stop the work. I is in training, L has learned it, U can work it unsupervised, O can train others.
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Daily management
Key performance indicator (KPI) tree
Goals, the driver metrics that actually move them, and a checkable target with a review cadence for each — a huddle board's metric tree, honestly flagging any goal with no real target yet.
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Daily management
Marketing key performance indicator (KPI) tree
The KPI tree discipline pointed at a marketing function: goals, the driver metrics that actually move them, and a checkable target with a review cadence for each — honestly flagging any goal, including channel attribution, with no real driver metric yet.
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Daily management
Leader standard work
A leader's own daily routine, in the same steps/key-points/reasons shape as a work instruction — what keeps a key performance indicator (KPI) tree, a training matrix, and a kaizen event's gains from quietly decaying once the excitement wears off.
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Daily management
Escalation matrix
A severity-by-severity response plan — definition, response target, escalation trigger, and a named first responder — honestly flagging any severity nobody's actually assigned to yet.
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Daily management
Shift handover
What happened this shift and what's still open — a real item log with a current status and an honest flag for what the next shift actually needs to watch.
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Visual management
Visual board design guide
What a visual board should show, how often, and who keeps it current — a worksheet specifying content and ownership, not a rendered board layout.
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Daily management
Tiered huddle board
A cascading structure of standing huddles — what each tier reviews, and the concrete condition that escalates something to the tier above — honestly flagging any tier nobody's actually named to run yet.
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Visual management
Go-see protocol
A structured walk to verify what a visual board and training matrix claim is actually true on the floor — major steps, each with a key point for how to observe well and the reason it matters.
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Visual management
Marketing go-see protocol
The go-see protocol's structured walk pointed at commercial data — verifying at the source systems, the customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, that a visibility board or marketing key performance indicator (KPI) tree's numbers are actually true, not just true on the dashboard built from them.
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Visual management
Andon / signal definition worksheet
What each visual signal means, what response it triggers, and who's watching for it — the escalation matrix's exact shape applied to a signal system.
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Standard work
Standard work audit
Whether a work instruction is actually being followed weeks after it was written — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to standard work instead of a kaizen event.
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Visual management
Visual management audit
Whether a visual board's zones are actually staying current weeks after it was designed — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to a visual board instead of a kaizen event.
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Standard work
Consistency audit
Whether a message architecture's pillars are actually being said the same way across reps and channels weeks after it was written — the sustainment audit's shape, applied to messaging instead of a kaizen event.
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Improve continuously
Kaizen events
Business case
The cost of the status quo, what the fix actually costs, and the quantified value it returns — with payback period and 3-year return on investment (ROI) computed from those numbers, not asserted, and every value driver's basis and confidence named plainly.
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Kaizen events
Business case builder
The business case discipline pointed at a deal instead of an internal investment: the cost of the status quo, what the deal costs, and the quantified value it returns — with payback period and 3-year return on investment (ROI) computed, not asserted, and every value driver's basis and confidence named so a champion can defend it without you in the room.
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Kaizen events
Implementation plan
Milestones toward a real completion date, each owned by your own team, an outside party, or both — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted: a plan where every milestone belongs to your own side isn't actually cross-functional.
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Kaizen events
Mutual action plan
The implementation-plan discipline pointed at a deal instead of an internal rollout: milestones toward the target close date, each owned by you, the buyer, or jointly — with days remaining, overdue and unowned milestones, and a mutuality check computed, not asserted, so a one-sided plan can't quietly pass as a real mutual commitment.
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Kaizen events
Stakeholder coverage map
How much of the population you actually need to reach is even tracked, and, within what's tracked, how completely each unit's required roles have a real named contact — both computed, not asserted, with dark units and systemically-missing roles flagged plainly.
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Kaizen events
Total addressable market (TAM) coverage map
How much of your total addressable market is even tracked as a target account, and, within what's tracked, how completely each account's buying-group roles have a real named contact — both computed, not asserted, with dark accounts and systemically-missing roles flagged plainly.
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Experimentation
Learning log
Whether a hypothesis already circulating has actually been tested, or is still just an assumption — a fixed set of hypotheses, a flat list of real tests run against them, and every hypothesis nobody's tested yet flagged plainly, alongside every test that recommends revising or killing the idea.
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Experimentation
Message testing log
The learning log discipline pointed at your standing message pillars: which ones actually resonate with a broader buyer audience, tested and recorded honestly, rather than assumed proven everywhere just because they worked in one deal.
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Improvement kata
Improvement Kata storyboard
Work toward a hard challenge one small, predicted step at a time: a challenge, the current condition seen first-hand, a near target condition (usually 1 to 4 weeks out), one obstacle in focus, and experiment records where what you expect is written before each step. Use it with a coach when the path to a goal can't be planned in advance.
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Measurement
Metric definition sheet
One owned formula, data source, and owner per metric name — closing the exact gap that lets two teams each compute 'the same' metric differently and both be technically right, and honestly flagging any metric that's still unresolved rather than picking a winner on its own.
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Measurement
Marketing metric definition sheet
The metric definition sheet discipline pointed at commercial metrics: one owned formula, data source, and owner per metric name — including honestly naming a channel-attribution model nobody actually chose, rather than letting it pass as validated.
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Measurement
Attribution reality check
How much credit for an outcome shifts depending purely on which honest model you pick — first-attributed, last-attributed, or an even split — computed across every real contributor, with the ones most sensitive to model choice flagged plainly rather than settled by whichever one looks most convenient.
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Measurement
Marketing attribution reality check
The attribution reality check discipline pointed at real deal journeys: how much channel credit shifts depending purely on which honest model you pick, computed across every real touchpoint — including the sharp swing a customer relationship management (CRM) system's unvalidated first-touch default has never actually been checked against.
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Kaizen events
Kaizen funnel
A portfolio-level view of every improvement idea moving toward becoming a scheduled kaizen event — which stage each one is in, which are going stale, and honestly flagging any idea nobody's actually championing yet.
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Kaizen events
Kaizen event charter
The opportunity, the objective, who's on the team, and whether you're actually ready to start — one document, not three you'd have to keep in sync, with a readiness checklist you check off before the event begins.
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Kaizen events
Marketing operating system charter
The one document that launches a standing revenue/RevOps governance rhythm: who owns which recurring decision, and an honest readiness checklist for whether the cadence is actually running — not a kaizen event charter, a charter for the operating system itself.
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Kaizen events
Sustainment audit
Whether a kaizen event's commitments actually held after it closed — a checklist against the specific practices it was supposed to leave behind, honestly naming which are at risk of lapsing.
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Sustain
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