The bowler shows which rows are off plan. The countermeasure sheet says what is being done about each one, and, crucially, checks the next month whether it worked. Without that check, countermeasures pile up and nobody knows which ones helped.
In this guide
Key Takeaways
- →Countermeasure, not solution. The word keeps the response open to being wrong.
- →Expected effect and result are the two fields that separate this from an action log.
- →The sheet is filled before the review, by the row owner, not during the meeting.
- →The review opens with last month’s expected effects, before anything new is discussed.
- →A second failed countermeasure on the same row triggers an A3.
- →A failure visible in one month instead of three is the sheet doing its job.
Countermeasures, not solutions
Lean practice deliberately says countermeasure rather than solution. A solution implies the problem is solved. A countermeasure is a response to the current understanding of a problem, to be tested and replaced if it doesn’t work. That framing matters in hoshin reviews, where a confident “solution” often stops anyone checking whether the gap actually closed.
It is the same stance the X-matrix takes towards its correlations, which is why the two work well together; see The X-Matrix Is a Set of Hypotheses. Treat It Like One.
The fields
| Field | Contents |
|---|---|
| Row | The bowler row or objective that is off plan |
| Gap | Plan against actual this month |
| Cause | The specific reason, in a sentence |
| Countermeasure | The action being taken |
| Owner | Who is doing it |
| Due | When it will be in place |
| Expected effect | What should change, and by when |
| Result | Filled at the next review: did the expected effect happen? |
The last two fields are what separate a countermeasure sheet from an action log. An action log records what was done. A countermeasure sheet records what was expected and whether it happened.
The gap in row two comes off the bowler, so the two documents share a vocabulary; Bowler Chart Template for Hoshin Kanri: Structure, Formulas, Colors covers the comment column this sheet expands on.
Running the sheet
- Filled before the review, by the row owner, not in the meeting.
- One line per gap, with a specific cause.
- Results checked first. The review starts with last month’s expected effects.
- Escalate on repeat. A second failed countermeasure on the same row triggers an A3.
The most useful question in a hoshin review is: last month we expected this to change. Did it?
A worked example: two months of a sheet
Here is a hypothetical sheet across two months, from cause to next month’s result:
| Row | Cause | Countermeasure | Expected effect | Result next month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price realization | Large deals discounted outside the tool | Approval required for discounts above 8% | Realization up 0.3 points | Up 0.4: worked; close |
| On-time delivery, site B | Supplier late on two components | Second supplier qualified | On-time back above 92% | 89%: second supplier not yet shipping; revise date |
| Services share | Low attach rate in new territories | Service sales retraining | Attach rate up 5 points | Up 1: failed; escalate to A3 |
| Scope 3 share | Two suppliers delayed conversion | Contract clause with conversion date | Both convert by Q3 | Pending |
The services row shows the sheet doing its job. Retraining was a reasonable countermeasure. It didn’t work, and the sheet makes that visible in one month rather than three. The A3 that followed found the real cause: calls were still being routed away from the new centers.
What an unchecked countermeasure costs
Every row on that sheet has a price, and it is paid in months. The services row is the clearest case: retraining was plausible, it failed, and the sheet surfaced that at the next review. Without the expected-effect and result fields, the same row would have read “retraining delivered” in month one and “retraining delivered” in month two, and the real cause, call routing, would have surfaced somewhere around the quarterly. Two months of a priority spent on the wrong fix, on the objective the plan most depended on.
Multiply that by the number of off-track rows in a typical month and the cost is not administrative. It is the difference between a plan that corrects in weeks and one that corrects in quarters, which is the pattern described in Hoshin Planning Mistakes That Show Up in March.
Among published alternatives for holding this, 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 because the sheet is written by row owners, who are usually a level below the people running the review.
Profit.co publishes two plans, Essentials and Enterprise, quoting against modules and scale rather than a public seat rate, with Hoshin Kanri in Essentials alongside OKRs and Goals, Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Roadmap. The 30-day free trial covers one full check-and-escalate cycle. What drives the cost of hoshin kanri software lists the rest to total.
Countermeasures in Profit.co
In Profit.co, the monthly review records countermeasures as rows on the meeting record: KPI, gap, root cause, countermeasure, owner and due date, while owners’ check-ins carry status and a comment beside each month’s value.
When a countermeasure fails, the row escalates to a countermeasure A3 on the same gap. The A3 adds what a sheet can’t: a current condition against target, a check that waits for the expected lag before judging, and a link from the result back to the correlation that raised the gap. Each countermeasure in an A3 is an initiative, so its progress and its owner’s load are visible alongside everything else. More on the Hoshin Kanri software page.
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Questions this article answers
A specific action taken in response to the current understanding of a gap, expected to have a stated effect and checked at the next review. It may be replaced if it doesn’t work.
The off-track row, the gap, its cause, the countermeasure, owner, due date, expected effect and, at the next review, the result.
A common rule is when a row stays red for two consecutive months or a second countermeasure on the same gap fails.
Because a solution implies the problem is solved, and that framing stops anyone checking whether the gap actually closed. A countermeasure is explicitly a tested response that may need to change.
The row owner, before the review rather than during it. Filling it in the meeting turns the review into a drafting session instead of a decision one.
An action log records what was done. A countermeasure sheet records what was expected to change and whether it did, which is what lets a failed fix be spotted in one month rather than three.
