A bowler chart, or bowling chart, is simple to build and easy to build badly. Most problems come from three decisions made once in the template: how performance is calculated, where the color thresholds sit, and whether there’s room for the owner to explain the gap.
Download the free Excel bowler chart template ↓
In this guide
- The structure
- Performance formulas
- Color thresholds
- Cumulative or monthly values
- A worked example: one row block
- A formula cookbook
- Setting up the colors
- Layout variants
- Common template errors
- A worked example: three rows, one quarter
- Template checklist
- What the workbook costs to keep
- Download the free bowler chart template
- Questions this article answers
Key Takeaways
- →Three rows, three formulas. A template with only one is wrong for most real plans.
- →Lower-is-better KPIs need the formula inverted, or an improving row turns red.
- →The comment column is what makes the bowler a management tool rather than a scoreboard.
- →Label cumulative or monthly per row. Mixing them without labels causes avoidable arguments.
- →Months that haven’t happened, or results inside their lag, show a dash, never 0% and red.
- →Most bowler arguments are template errors that look like performance problems.
The structure
| Element | Contents |
|---|---|
| Row block | One per objective or KPI: plan, actual, performance |
| Columns | Twelve months, plus year to date and full-year target |
| Identifiers | Owner, unit, direction (higher or lower is better), cumulative or monthly |
| Status | Color per month, from performance against thresholds |
| Comment | Cause, countermeasure, owner and recovery date for any month off plan |
The comment column is the one most templates leave out, and it’s the one that makes the bowler a management tool rather than a scoreboard. The discipline behind it is covered in Bowler charts and the countermeasure discipline.
What goes in that column, field by field, is set out in Countermeasure Sheets in Hoshin Kanri: Tracking Actions on Off-Track Objectives.
Performance formulas
| KPI type | Performance formula | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Higher is better | Actual ÷ plan | Plan 50%, actual 45% → 90% |
| Lower is better | Plan ÷ actual | Plan 4 days, actual 5 days → 80% |
| Target is a range | Within range = 100%; outside, distance from nearest bound | Inventory between 30 and 40 days |
The lower-is-better case is where templates most often go wrong. If the same formula is used for defects or lead time as for revenue, an improving row turns red.
Color thresholds
| Status | Common threshold | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Performance 100% or above | On or ahead of plan |
| Amber | 90% to 99% | Slightly behind; comment required |
| Red | Below 90% | Off plan; countermeasure required |
A common convention. Agree your own before the first review and don’t change them mid-year.
Some organizations use tighter thresholds for KPIs that move slowly and looser ones for volatile measures. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently, and record it in the template so nobody argues about colors in the review.
Cumulative or monthly values
Choose per row and label it. Cumulative values (year to date) suit progress towards a year-end target, such as sites reaching a maturity level. Monthly values suit run-rate KPIs, such as on-time delivery. Mixing them without labels is a common source of confusion; so is a cumulative plan row compared against a monthly actual.
Phase the plan row to the path the result is expected to follow rather than splitting the target into twelve equal steps. See Phasing Monthly Plan Values in Hoshin Kanri So the Bowler Tells the Truth.
A worked example: one row block
A hypothetical row block: sites at maturity level 2, plan vs actual:
| Measure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan (cumulative %) | 5 | 10 | 18 | 28 | 40 | 52 |
| Actual | 5 | 9 | 14 | 27 | 41 | 50 |
| Performance | 100% | 90% | 78% | 96% | 103% | 96% |
| Status | Green | Amber | Red | Amber | Green | Amber |
March’s comment reads: “Cause: audit failed at one site on maintenance records. Countermeasure: records system rolled out by 15 April. Owner: site lead. Recovery: May.” May’s green confirms it worked. Without the comment column, March would have been a red cell and an argument.
A formula cookbook
The formulas below are written generically; adapt the cell references to your spreadsheet. “Dir” is a column holding “up” for higher-is-better and “down” for lower-is-better.
| Purpose | Formula logic |
|---|---|
| Performance, either direction | IF Dir = up: Actual ÷ Plan; otherwise Plan ÷ Actual |
| Year to date (monthly values) | Sum of actuals to date ÷ sum of plans to date |
| Variance | Actual − Plan, sign flipped for lower-is-better so negative always means behind |
| Status | IF performance ≥ 100%: Green; IF ≥ 90%: Amber; otherwise Red |
| Range target | IF Actual between Low and High: 100%; otherwise distance to the nearest bound ÷ range width, subtracted from 100% |
| Not yet judged | IF the month is in the future, or before the KPI can respond: show “—”, not 0% or a color |
The last row matters more than it looks. A bowler that shows 0% and red for months that haven’t happened, or for results still inside their expected lag, teaches the review to ignore red from the first meeting.
Setting up the colors
- Apply conditional formatting to the status row, not the actual row, so the numbers stay readable.
- Use color plus a label (G, A, R) so the chart works in print, on projectors and for color-blind readers.
- Write the thresholds in a header cell and reference that cell in the formulas, so changing them is one edit, not forty.
- Leave future months uncolored.
Layout variants
| Variant | Structure | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| By objective | A block per objective, with its KPIs and key priorities beneath | Leadership reviews |
| By KPI only | One block per KPI on the matrix | Lean teams already used to KPI boards |
| Leading and lagging pairs | Each lagging KPI with its leading indicator directly below | Spotting problems before the lagging KPI confirms them |
| By site | The same KPI block repeated per site | Multi-site comparison; doubles as a control group |
Leading and lagging pairs are the most useful variant and the least common. Pairing them puts the early signal where the review will see it. See Writing KPIs for the Hoshin Kanri X-Matrix: Definitions, Baselines, Sources.
Common template errors
- One formula for every row, so lower-is-better KPIs turn red when they improve.
- Cumulative plan against monthly actual in the same row.
- Linear plan rows that make expected months look like misses.
- Overwritten history. Last month’s values replaced instead of kept.
- No comment column, so every red cell becomes a discussion instead of a decision.
Most bowler arguments are template errors that look like performance problems.
A worked example: three rows, one quarter
Here are three hypothetical rows for one quarter, each measured differently:
| Row | Dir | Type | Jan plan / actual | Feb plan / actual | Mar plan / actual | Mar performance | Mar status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sites at maturity level 2 (cumulative %) | Up | Cumulative | 5 / 5 | 10 / 9 | 18 / 14 | 78% | Red |
| Order-to-delivery lead time (days) | Down | Monthly | 12 / 12 | 12 / 11 | 11 / 13 | 85% | Red |
| Inventory (days, target range 30–40) | Range | Monthly | 35 / 38 | 35 / 42 | 35 / 39 | 100% | Green |
Each row needs a different formula. The maturity row uses actual ÷ plan on cumulative values: 14 ÷ 18 = 78%. The lead-time row is lower-is-better, so plan ÷ actual: 11 ÷ 13 = 85%. A template using one formula for both would have shown lead time at 118% and green. The inventory row is in range in March, so it scores 100% despite being above the 35-day midpoint; February’s 42 days, outside the range, would have scored below 100%.
Three rows, three formulas. A bowler template that has only one is wrong for most real plans.
Template checklist
- Direction recorded per row, with the formula inverted for lower-is-better.
- Cumulative or monthly labelled per row.
- Thresholds agreed and written on the template.
- A comment column with cause, countermeasure, owner and date.
- Plan values phased, not divided evenly.
Profit.co’s bowler chart shows monthly plan, actual and performance score for each objective, colored by status, with the owner’s last check-in comment alongside, built from the same objectives as the X-matrix. See the Hoshin Kanri software page.
What the workbook costs to keep
The workbook is free. The cost is the person who maintains it: twelve months of columns across every row, plan values rephased whenever a target moves, formulas checked each time someone adds a measure, and a change log so last month’s numbers are not quietly overwritten. In a multi-site plan the same file is copied per site and then reconciled by hand, which is where the hours actually go.
That is the number to compare a tool against, not zero. Hoshin kanri software vs Excel: the point where the spreadsheet breaks covers where the arithmetic stops being the problem and the version history starts.
Among published alternatives, OnStrategy lists $200 per month for unlimited users. i-nexus publishes a free Starter tier for up to five users and $28 per user per month at its Standard tier. Seats matter here because a bowler is read by everyone who owns a row, not only by the people who run the review.
Profit.co publishes two plans, Essentials and Enterprise, quoting against modules and scale rather than a public seat rate. Hoshin Kanri sits in Essentials alongside OKRs and Goals, Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Roadmap, so the bowler is generated from the same objectives the X-matrix uses rather than retyped into a second file. What drives the cost of hoshin kanri software lists the rest to total, and the 30-day free trial covers a full monthly review cycle, which is the span in which the comment column either gets used or doesn’t.
Download the free bowler chart template
An Excel workbook built to the checklist in this article, with an illustrative example plan already filled in so you can see every rule working. It includes:
- →Plan, actual, performance and status for up to 10 measures, with a comment row for cause and countermeasure
- →Direction-aware formulas: higher-is-better, lower-is-better and range targets each calculated correctly
- →Cumulative and monthly rows, with the right year-to-date logic for each
- →A “first judged” month, so lagging KPIs show — rather than red before they can respond
- →An Exceptions sheet that lists what the monthly review should discuss, including red two months running
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Questions this article answers
Actual divided by plan for higher-is-better KPIs, and plan divided by actual for lower-is-better KPIs such as lead time or defects.
A common convention is green at 100% of plan or above, amber from 90% to 99%, and red below 90%. Agree yours before the first review.
Either, chosen per row and labelled. Cumulative suits progress towards a year-end target; monthly suits run-rate KPIs.
Because the template is using actual divided by plan for every row. For lead time, defects or cost, the formula has to be inverted to plan divided by actual.
A dash, with no color. Showing 0% and red for future months, or for results still inside their expected lag, teaches the review to ignore red from the first meeting.
Leading and lagging pairs, with each lagging KPI followed directly by its leading indicator. It is the least common variant and the one that surfaces problems before the lagging KPI confirms them.
