Visual Management

KEY TAKEAWAYS A management Obeya is the leadership team’s operating system made visible. It tracks the health of the business, not project deliveries. Seven boards on the walls of one room replaced opinion-based meetings with weekly data-driven sessions in 60 minutes. The agency director continued to run the Obeya after the engagement ended. The boards evolved, the weekly rhythm never stopped. An IT services agency director wanted to change how his management team worked together. He had a strategy and objectives. He also had talented people running operations, commercial development, and client delivery. What he did not have was a way to see it all in one place, discuss it factually, and solve problems before they became crises. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS A BI team managing nearly 20 projects across several continents built an Obeya room and doubled on-time delivery in 3 months. The Obeya surfaced milestone collisions, quality failures, and ownership gaps that no status report had ever shown. Three PDCAs run inside the Obeya rescued a go-live, halved defects per delivery, and created a standard that the team still uses. Get the Full Project Obeya Template with all the boards layout: Strategy, performance, macro planning, and problem-solving. Ready to print and fill in. [Download Free Template →] ...

A financial software case study. How visual management, daily flash meetings, and team-led PDCAs replaced rework with ownership. KEY TAKEAWAYS A 15-person COBOL team at a financial institution reduced defects from 93 per month to 8 in two months. The team ran their own PDCAs using visual management and daily flash meetings. The method works the same for different tech teams: software development, testing, tech support, IT operations, and project delivery. Results from real coached teams: 91% defect reduction in financial software, 160% testing productivity gain, 94% backlog cleared in e-services support, 70% on-time resolution improvement in energy sector IT operations. Does Your Team Have the Same Problem? Take the 3-minute Delivery Scorecard to find out: Where your delivery system breaks down Whether you’re fixing symptoms or root causes Your biggest improvement opportunity right now Find Your Team’s #1 Bottleneck (Free) → ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS A 13-person billing test team increased productivity by 24% in three months by making work visible, setting daily targets, and solving problems one at a time with PDCA. Diagnostic before action: observing testers at their workstations revealed hidden waste like seven help requests in three hours, repeated tests without conclusions, and two-hour solo investigations. When the project manager changed mid-project, the new manager walked into a team that ran itself. Visual boards, tracked indicators, and clear action plans made the transition seamless. Get the Lean Testing Quick-Start Kit. 4 practices, real results, a two-week plan to start Monday. Get the Kit → ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS False defects dropped from 44% to 4% by implementing an andon system where testers call for help before reporting uncertain bugs Testing productivity more than tripled (from 1.5 to 8 tests per person per day) through a pull flow system with daily targets Failed corrections dropped from 23% to 10% using a quality wall with expert verification Client satisfaction recovered after years of complaints, with the client noting clear improvement in service quality This case study was co-presented with Arnaud Cailleau, then Director of Testing Services at Sopra Steria. [Download the original presentation (PDF)] ...

A Lean approach for startups growing faster than their support team can handle KEY TAKEAWAYS On-time resolution jumped from 40% to 68% by switching from push-based assignment to a pull system where technicians take tickets when they have capacity Escalation rate dropped from 20% to 11% through quality standards and visual management Client satisfaction improved from 7/10 to 8/10 with no additional headcount 44-ticket backlog cleared by making flow visible and enforcing a 24-hour assignment rule Your inbox is a disaster. Tickets are piling up. Your support team is stressed, working late, and still falling behind. Customers are getting angrier. Response times are slipping. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS An Obeya is a physical or virtual space where the project lives on the walls, and the team meets weekly to decide what to change. Toyota built the first one during the Prius program in the 1990s. The method now runs in software, hospitals, banks, and creative agencies. A BI team I coached went from 24% to 55% on-time delivery in three months, cut defects in half, and raised customer satisfaction from 5.5 to 9.4. Across my engagements, I’ve used three types: project Obeya for delivery, management Obeya for business health, and product Obeya for customer fit. Pick by what you are trying to manage. The wall is not the point. The weekly conversation in front of the wall is. Without an animator running it, the room becomes wall decoration. A BI (Business Intelligence) team went from 24% on-time delivery to 55% in three months, using one room and six visual boards. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS Better tools and smarter engineers won’t fix delivery if the system around them is broken. Most bottlenecks come from invisible delays, unclear ownership, and overloaded workflows—not from poor coding. AI accelerates output, but it also amplifies dysfunction. Without flow visibility, fast code creation leads to more rework, review delays, and misaligned priorities. Improving delivery doesn’t require a massive transformation. Start small: make work visible, limit WIP, and fix the handoffs. These simple changes create real, lasting impact. The Pain That Won’t Go Away You’ve hired competent developers. You’ve added AI tools to speed things up. You’ve upgraded your stack, improved your CI/CD, and given teams more autonomy. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS 37% Increase in Customer Satisfaction: Achieved through systematic lead time reduction in just 3 months. 94% Reduction in Support Backlog: Accomplished without additional headcount or resources. Sustainable Performance Improvement: through measurable KPIs and executive-driven accountability. Context: E-Government Services Support Challenge A government agency is transforming the way it serves its citizens. They’ve launched several online services – what we call “e-services” – that revolutionize how people interact with the government. Citizens can, for example, now request criminal records, obtain national certificates, and register their businesses, all through their screens. ...