Definition
A small full-time team within the enterprise that drives the rollout of the management system: organizing Kaizen weeks, coaching and follow-up, maintaining standards and certification, and reporting directly to the top leader; it drives improvement but does not do improvement on behalf of business departments. From a publicly published work, not textbook measurement definition.
In detail
The Promotion Office is the engine of system introduction and a talent pool for future managers. Its size varies across several books: 2%–3% of the number of hourly workers, about 3% of total headcount as full-time, 1%–3% of employees (including part-time). Because the denominators differ, these cannot be averaged; they should be stated as customer calibration parameters. A common failure is making all members part-time, finding "people who happen to be free," or having the office do the work of business departments, resulting in activities that end with no follow-up.
Example in practice
When a 200-person factory begins its rollout, it first assigns 1 full-time rollout leads reporting directly to the general manager, and designates 1 part-time promoters for each value stream; the rollout office schedules one Kaizen week per month and clears pending items once a week, and after two years promotes the full-time promoters to value stream leaders.