--- name: cascade-map description: "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. Use when: You have a real X-Matrix (or a prior year's cascade) whose annual objectives need to become owned work at the level below it. You want an honest record of which objectives have a real, committed owner and which are still just proposed — not a plan that looks complete because every cell got filled in. Not for: You don't have a parent plan yet — build the X-Matrix first; a cascade map has nothing to cascade from without one. You want a single function's own goal-to-metric breakdown — that's a KPI tree, not a cascade map. A cascade map is about which unit owns which objective; a KPI tree is what that unit tracks once it does." --- # 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. Family: Hoshin Kanri · Format: .xlsx · Domain: core ## What it is A cascade map records the one hand-off Hoshin Kanri depends on and nothing else in this catalogue tracks: whether a parent plan's annual objectives actually became real, owned work at the level below. An X-Matrix sets one level's plan; catchball is the negotiation that produces it; a cascade map is the separate, later question of what happened to each objective after that — did a real unit take it on, and is that commitment real or just a name on a slide. It is not a KPI tree: a KPI tree breaks one goal into the driver metrics that move it, inside a single function; a cascade map tracks which unit owns which objective, across multiple units, and says nothing about the metrics that prove any of them are moving. ## When to use it Use it when: - You have a real X-Matrix (or a prior year's cascade) whose annual objectives need to become owned work at the level below it. - You want an honest record of which objectives have a real, committed owner and which are still just proposed — not a plan that looks complete because every cell got filled in. - You're checking whether the load is actually balanced across units, not quietly concentrated on the same team that always says yes. Not when: - You don't have a parent plan yet — build the X-Matrix first; a cascade map has nothing to cascade from without one. - You want a single function's own goal-to-metric breakdown — that's a KPI tree, not a cascade map. A cascade map is about which unit owns which objective; a KPI tree is what that unit tracks once it does. - You're tempted to mark a link 'committed' just to make coverage look complete — an objective assigned on paper with no real agreement behind it is exactly the failure catchball itself exists to prevent, one level up. ## How to fill it in - **parentObjectives** — Name the parent X-Matrix and describe its real annual objectives — a first-pass list gets drafted from that, for you to correct against the plan's actual objectives and targets. - **units** — The teams, divisions, or sites this plan needs to cascade to — drafted from your description. - **links** — Only enter a link where a unit has actually proposed or committed to carrying a parent objective forward as its own, with a local objective that's genuinely more specific than the parent one — a real hand-off, never the parent text copied down. - **coverage** — Computed for you from your parent objectives, units, and links — nothing to enter here. - **narrative** — Drafted from the cascade actually built. - **nextSteps** — What will you do about a dark objective or an unloaded unit, ranked by impact and effort, owned and dated. ## What good looks like The example below cascades Northwind Fabrication's own FY2027 X-Matrix (the Hoshin Kanri worked example) to its shop-floor teams: two of the three annual objectives have a real, committed owner — the CNC Shop Floor and Scheduling teams — while the late-shipment objective is still only proposed to Quality, honestly left uncommitted rather than marked done to round the numbers up. Full worked example, on-screen and as a downloadable .xlsx: https://www.katafacts.com/katas/cascade-map ## Common mistakes - **Marking a link 'committed' when it's really still just an assignment on paper.** — A unit that was told to own an objective, but never actually agreed to it, hasn't really taken it on — the whole point of tracking 'proposed' separately is catching this before the year ends and nobody delivered. - **Copying the parent objective's text down as the local objective instead of making it genuinely more specific.** — A cascade that doesn't get more specific at each level isn't actually cascading — it's relabeling. The local objective should say exactly what this unit is going to do, not restate the parent's aspiration. - **Building the cascade once at the start of the year and never updating it as proposals turn into commitments or quietly fall through.** — Same living-document discipline as the X-Matrix itself — a cascade map that was accurate in January and never touched again is stale by the first business review. ## What it connects to Upstream: - **Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix** (`hoshin-kanri`) — The parent plan this cascades from — a cascade map has nothing to track without a real X-Matrix's annual objectives behind it. Downstream: - **Key performance indicator (KPI) tree** (`kpi-tree`) — Once a unit actually commits to a local objective here, a KPI tree is often what that unit builds next to track the driver metrics that move it week to week — the cascade map records the hand-off, the KPI tree is what happens after. - **A3 problem solving** (`a3`) — When a committed local objective isn't moving, an A3 is the right tool to find out why — the cascade map shows who owns it, the A3 closes the specific gap. ## Where AI helps Judgement — stays with you: - Deciding whether a unit has actually committed to an objective or merely been assigned it - Deciding which dark objective or unloaded unit to chase down first Analysis — AI helps: - Drafting a first-pass parent-objective and unit list from a description of the parent plan - Drafting the narrative from the cascade actually built Drudgery — automated: - Computing cascade coverage and per-unit load - Flagging dark objectives — parent objectives with zero committed links - Exporting to xlsx in the house format --- Cascade map is licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com). ## Using this skill Apply this method as part of whatever broader task, instructions, or deliverable you're already working on -- it's a method to use, not a standalone conversation to start. There is no generation tool for this catalogue yet, so draft the artifact's actual content yourself, following the fields above, the same way a person filling this out by hand would. The canonical guide page and a downloadable worked example (.xlsx) are at https://www.katafacts.com/katas/cascade-map.