Visual Management

Team Accountability Board and other visual controls for visual management

Lean Visual Management Boards

Whenever you add a new element to your lean production system,
you should also quickly add supporting lean management elements.

Every lean tool needs a corresponding Lean Coaching System

Focus on Visual Controls When you focus on visual controls, the other 2 elements will quickly and naturally follow. Essential elements of any lean management system Visual controls Routine accountability habits Leader Standard Work

---

What are Lean Visual Controls?

The term 'lean visual controls' can broadly include...

Any intuitively-easy-to-understand system
for monitoring and controlling a process

with examples ranging from
kanbans to painted golf balls,

Visual Management Board

but most common is
the visual control chart

A visual control chart is...

any printed or hand-written chart that:

• is used for monitoring or controlling
  any aspect of production
• is posted in plain sight
  very near the place where the actual work is done
• is frequently updated with the latest results
  

  timely enough to effectively respond to problems,
  not just historical post mortems

• graphically highlights problems
• has notes clearly articulating the reasons for 'misses'

  (differences between expected vs. actual results)

• can ideally be understood at a glance
  by anyone passing by

Data inside a computer is not visual (until it is printed)

A visual management system must be visual.

Data hidden inside a computer does not meet the above criteria
until perhaps it is printed, or otherwise reproduced in a way that meets the above criteria.

Balance between Computer and Handwritten Visual Management Systems Hand-entered data is better for When you are the author, are you proud of what you deliver? Ownership "fingerprints" Timely data entry onto the printed form Auditor initials Computer-generated charts and forms are better for Creating the underlying printed form (that needs to be consistent, legible, easily reprinted...) Computational accuracy Charts Data analysis Sharing and archiving Most lean visual management systems include a diverse assortment of visual controls, each with its own balance of hand-written and computer-generated elements.

---

Visual Management Examples

---

invent

Create your own

Visual Management Boards

These templates provide an excellent starting point

so that your expensive Black Belts aren't wasting time
re-inventing tools that are common to many production and office environments...

but once your people understand the tools and systems that are readily available,
and start to conceive ideas to make them even better
to meet the unique needs of your unique processes...

then, yes, absolutely...

Invent your own visual controls

Starting with either:

1. Any one of the above templates

   that provides a good starting point to give you a great start

2. A blank template

   that gives your custom tool all the value-add features common to all of your 150+ Systems2win templates

3. A blank Excel workbook

   If you enjoy the challenge, and your employer is wiling to pay you
   for the non-value-add time to start from a white page and a blinking cursor

4. A creative idea

   Although Visual Control Charts are the most common type of visual control,
   they aren't your only choice.

   Kanban signals might be golf balls, triangles, or all kinds of creative objects.

   You might come up with creative colored flags to make your Lean Office Work Flow Cycle visible.

   You might use colored lights for more than just jidoka andons.

Assuming that you are inventing a visual control chart...

Use everything you know and learn about familiar Microsoft Excel

and everything you know about how to personalize any Systems2win template

Go for it...

Create your own visual controls for any activity of any kind

 

Just make sure that any custom visual control that you invent meets the

Fundamental Requirements of a Visual Control

1. Compares expected vs. actual results

   Because that's the primary purpose of a visual management system:

   To reveal abnormalities, so they can be corrected quickly.

2. Is visual

   Not buried in a computer.

   Problems are highlighted using graphics, colors, and creative ways to be intuitive and visual

3. Is near the place where the work is done

   So that the people doing (and supervising) the work can use the real-time feedback.

4. Is updated frequently

   Frequently enough to actually make real-time corrections. Not just post-mortems.

5. Has notes explaining reasons for every miss

   For post-mortems — that lead to measurable improvements.

6. Is accompanied by a Lean Management System

   That empowers leaders to actually do something about revealed problems — quickly.

---

Summary Recap

Visual Management Boards

Constantly reinforce focus on the process ...

using intuitive graphics and/or colors ...

that can be quickly understood by a newcomer passing by

What is most important about visual controls is that you, (the leader at any level)... Understand the reason for having a visual management system "By insisting through your standard work that the visuals are maintained and current, visuals constantly reinforce the focus on process. This focus makes it easier to see the contrast between expected and actual process performance. By doing this, visuals allow you to identify opportunities for improvement." ~ David Mann — Creating a Lean Culture

---

Do something about the problems you find

The primary purpose of any visual management system

is to quickly and visibly reveal process abnormalities

Any abnormality should prompt the following 3 questions

1. Did this happen because no standard work exists?
2. Did this happen because the standard is incorrect or incomplete?
3. Did this happen because someone didn't correctly follow the standard work?

When measures are too green If any measure is green more than 80% of the time, then consider lowering the water (to reveal more stumps and alligators hidden beneath the surface of a too-easy standard) Lower the inventory, shorten the time, reduce setup times, cross train people... Do something to raise the standard — to continuously improve to the next level of higher performance toward lean ideals The only way to solve a problem is to first expose it.

If the primary purpose of visual control is to reveal problems...

then the assumption is that you lean leadership team will actually

Do something about the problems that get revealed

• Perhaps launch a team, or expand the charter of an existing one
• Perhaps your team might maintain a Pareto Chart of the top 3 priority problems you are currently working on — and publish it on your Team Accountability Board.
• Perhaps a team member might volunteer to lead an A3 problem solving exercise.
• Perhaps a problem might prove worthy of a kaizen event.
• Perhaps a problem might need to be escalated to a higher tier of your lean management structure.
• Perhaps a problem might affect and be of interest to the larger value stream.
• If things aren't flowing, re-design the process for lean flow.

If your lean leaders don't actually solve problems as they surface,

then people will quickly lose interest, and wonder why they're doing all this
extra busy work to identify even more problems that management ignores.

Every lean tool needs a corresponding Lean Coaching System

If it is to succeed, every lean production system must be implemented with a corresponding lean management system and the most obvious elements of your lean management systems are your visual controls

---

---

TeamBoard

Visual Management Board

The most common element of a visual management system is a Team Board

Team Accountability Board

As suggested in your Leader Standard Work template, (LSW.xlsx)

each Team, Supervisor, and Value Stream
should have its own bulletin board
located very near the place where the actual work is done.

This Team Accountability Board displays the team's most important visual information, and also serves as the agenda and meeting location for the team's stand up meetings.

The format and contents
of each team's Huddle Board can vary greatly.

Common elements often include:

• Printed charts
  summarizing the most important Key Performance Indicators.

  Charts must be kept current — often printed daily,
  or even more often for particularly time-critical data

• Sticky note based tracking systems — for Task Assignments and/or Suggestions.

Balance between Computer and Sticky Note Tracking Systems We at Systems2win are more computer-oriented than most, but we really like the sticky note based Accountability Board tracking systems for both Task Assignments and Suggestions as described in Chapter 5 of David Mann's book, Creating a Lean Culture. We like them for their simplicity, accessibility, visuality, and the "fingerprint" factor of keeping the task or suggestion in the person's own words and hand writing. Many teams, however, like to also publish printed copies of project status reports on their Team Accountability board — usually sliding the latest printed report into a transparent document-holder sleeve. You can purchase a wide variety of transparent document holder sleeves from StoreSMART.com   The Team To Do List and Excel Gantt Chart and Value Stream Plan templates can be a powerful supplement to a Team Accountability Board, by providing easy, field-proven ways for the Team Leader to: Have well-organized 'parking lot' systems to store (and later actually come back to) suggestions and tasks that are not high enough priority to be front and center on the sticky note Accountability Board — which should remain uncluttered — with only high priority tasks and suggestions that are actually being considered or implemented now Organize longer-term plans for more complex multi-phased projects providing field-proven structures for breaking complex projects into bite-sized Work Breakdown Structures — which the leader can then release in the form of a visible sticky note at the precise moment that the team needs to do something about it Archive completed tasks We agree that it is good motivation to leave completed sticky notes on the Accountability Board for a period of time — so that the team feels the satisfaction that comes from seeing all of those green round stickers — but at some point, the board will need to be cleared to make room for the even greater accomplishments that just keep coming.

---

Process Observation Point

A Team Accountability Board often doubles as a 'Process Observation Point' or 'Visual Observation Station':

A designated place to easily observe the process.

Although a Process Observation Point might also have visual controls for
quality, reliability, scrap, cost, pace, or any other Key Performance Indicators...

the most essential element that should be front and center in any Process Observation Point
is a visual control that instantly indicates how well your product is flowing through that work area.

Acid test for Lean Flow

Invite someone unfamiliar with the work area
to stand at the clearly-marked Process Observation Point,

ideally with no further instruction, but perhaps with a brief explanation for:

1) how to read your at-a-glance visual control chart that makes heijunka flow visible for this process

2) how often it is updated — which usually coincides with your Pitch Pulse Cycle

(which is measured in hours; not days)

and then ask...

Is this process flowing as expected?

The answer should be either yes or no... red or green... no yellow.

Learn more about why this is the ultimate acid test for your entire lean transformation

---

storyboard

Lean Storyboard for Visual Management

aka PDCA Storyboard, Improvement Kata Storyboard, Learner's Storyboard

As popularized in the book The Toyota Kata, by Mike Rother,

a Learner's Storyboard is a special type of Team Accountability board

to facilitate and guide interaction between Learner and Coach,
and to visually tell the story of the progress of a rapidly-changing PDCA project.

Lean Learner's Storyboard
Focus Process <Title>	Strategic Challenge <Brief, compelling vision statement that almost never changes> See guidelines for how to phrase your Strategic Challenge
Target Condition Achieve by: <date> <Brief description that usually only changes when one Target is achieved, and the Next Target is chosen> See online training for Next Goal Setting	Current Condition See online training for Process Analysis	PDCA Cycles Record See online training for PDCA template
		Obstacles Parking Lot Unprioritized list of things that you might need to address in future PDCA Cycles. (You focus on only one obstacle at a time)

Sample Lean Storyboard example — in the format suggested for Toyota Kata Coaching

(publish on a large bulletin board)

Your PDCA Coaching template provides a standard format

that can be used throughout your organization

If you have physical space for 2 separate storyboards near the same process,

then you might decide to follow the Learner's Storyboard approach exactly as taught in The Toyota Kata, using the PDCA template only in the section of the Learner's Storyboard for PDCA tracking.

If you use the Systems2win PDCA Coaching template, however,

it does already incorporate every element of the Improvement Kata Storyboard,

so some Coaches might find it sufficiently visual, (and easier)
to simply publish that normal-sized working document in a transparent sleeve on your (already-existing) Team Accountability Board (described in the section above).

Perhaps a single sleeve to hold the stapled multi-page PDCA Coaching document, or perhaps multiple sleeves to show each page.

Perhaps supplement the (abbreviated) Current Condition section with a more detailed Process Analysis document.

Other Coaches might want to make things even more visual

by supplementing the report with some personalized format
for some large-print or graphic progress summary
on their own personalized Team Accountability Board.

The point is that there's not just one "right" way to communicate your Lean Storyboard.

The important thing is to incorporate all of the essential elements —

and make it visual.

"Eventually your organizationʼs storyboard design may evolve to suit your environment and culture. But try to keep a standard storyboard format across your organization, so coaching and communication are easier. Having a common format for the Learnerʼs storyboard makes it easier for the Coach to go from one Learner to the next." Mike Rother ~ Author of The Toyota Kata

---

Reading

Suggested Reading and Resources for

Visual Management Boards

One way to support the free training provided on this site is to purchase your books here

To see the links to suggested readings, you might need to change your Ad Blocker to allow ads on this page

More suggested reading & resources

---

Visual management tools with lean management templates, kaizen tools, project management tools, load leveling templates, strategic planning tools, and A3 Problem Solving tools   all for one low price that is affordable enough to empower every team member