Catchball
Definition
Catchball is the negotiation step in Hoshin Kanri in which a proposed objective is passed between organizational levels — down for challenge, back up with revisions — until the people who have to deliver it have shaped both the target and the means of reaching it. The name comes from playing catch: the goal is thrown, caught, examined, and thrown back rather than simply handed down.
Leadership proposes an annual objective and a rough approach. The level below responds with what it believes is achievable, what it would need, and where the approach conflicts with conditions on the ground. The exchange typically runs two or three rounds per level and continues downward through the organization. The output is a target both levels signed plus a shared picture of the constraints, which is why the step is timeboxed — commonly to a few weeks inside annual planning — rather than left open.
Catchball is the first thing cut when planning runs late, and its absence is hard to detect afterwards because the resulting plan looks identical on paper. It also depends on people being willing to contradict a manager in writing; where that carries a cost, the rounds happen but produce only agreement. Distributed teams find it harder than co-located ones, since the value sits in the argument rather than in the document it produces.
Example
Leadership proposes cutting first-response time from 6 hours to 1. The support lead counters: 2 hours at current headcount, or 1 hour with two more agents and a triage rewrite. They settle at 90 minutes with one hire, and the target is signed by both.
See also: Hoshin Kanri software