There are plenty of Lean improvement methodologies and tools. In my experience, I have found Daily Visual Management to be the most effective of all.
Daily Visual Management is often interpreted as a meeting to review performance metrics, identify opportunity areas, and enable problem resolution. But the real asset of Daily Visual Management is bringing people together and making individual team members work as a coherent unit.
Daily Visual Management is both a tool that leads to performance improvement and a process that fosters ownership, collaboration, accountability, and employee engagement.
Case Study
I had the opportunity to deploy Daily Visual Management in an organization with no previous experience with the concept. When I first met the supply chain team, they lacked the cohesiveness needed to succeed. Individual members were hardly aware of what the others were doing, their work's impact and did not use standard metrics to measure performance. So, not surprisingly, the performance of the team was lagging in many areas.
During one of our initial meetings, I explained the concept of Daily Visual Management as a tool for performance improvement. We discussed which performance metrics (KPIs) to measure, defined baseline and targets, agreed on who the metric owners would be, and established the logistics for our daily meetings. We also decided on the color-coding we would use, green for on-time and target, and red for past due or target at risk. I purposely chose not to use the yellow color because yellow can create a false sense of complacency. You either succeeded in attaining the results or not.
I printed empty charts for each metric and taped them on the whiteboard to jumpstart the process deployment. Then I parceled out sections for countermeasures and action items.
Driving Ownership
On the next day, I was pretty surprised when the team showed up right on time and with their metrics beautifully printed. Printed metrics were not precisely what I had in mind, but it was still a good starting point.
We went over the performance metrics, identified the necessary actions, and assigned owners and due dates. At the end of the meeting, I asked the team to graph the results on the paper charts pasted on the whiteboard instead of bringing computer-printed ones. I got quite a few raised eyebrows; after all, I dealt with a team of highly tech-savvy employees. We got over the initial hump, though I am sure they still saw me as the cavewoman who came to disrupt their everyday daily lives.
On day two, they all showed up, and the charts on the whiteboard were hand-drawn with the previous day's results. Our meeting stretched beyond the scheduled 30-minutes, mainly because the team was concerned with making their drawings look perfect – like the computer ones. Of course, it is much easier and faster to use a computer printout. But daily visual management is most effective when it relies on "old-school" drawing.
The act of physically drawing on a chart, creates a higher sense of ownership. It strengthens problem-solving skills and creativity because it forces a person to process information in multiple ways.
We kept on meeting every day and started making progress. By the end of the first week, we had conversations about what the data told us and some of the issues we discovered. We still struggled with keeping the meeting at 30 minutes, but I knew this would course-correct in time.
Driving Collaboration
We had solid improvement on ownership by the end of week two, so we focused on fostering collaboration. I started by inviting all team members to share their thoughts on each other's KPIs. The intent here was to make the team feel comfortable expressing their opinions and challenging each other within a safe environment. Initially, there was a sense of discomfort. The team which had built a strong camaraderie and challenging each other did not feel comfortable.
But I knew that for true collaboration to happen, they all needed to feel ownership for each other's deliverables, and expressing their opinions and challenges would do just that. With time, they began to understand how they could help each other collectively as a team. And when they realized the power of collective thinking in addressing problems and issues, the whole process became a positive learning experience.
We had evolved from "the issue of the individual who owned the metric" to the entire team owning the issue at hand. The conversation turned far more relaxed by the end of the week, feelings of trust and collaboration emerged.
Driving Accountability
In week three, we focused on introducing the topic of accountability; it was the most challenging.
We had assigned owners and due dates to action items, but many were incomplete and past due. It was now time to start asking the difficult question: Why? The metric owners became defensive. There were many pinpointing, rationalization, and excuses on why it was impossible to deliver on time.
A common theme emerged: the need for resources and prioritization. Here is where many organizations struggle.
Visual daily management is not about the number of metrics you track but rather the vital few that will drive performance excellence in the overall business.
Metrics must be aligned with the business strategy and goals. When this is true, then resource allocation and prioritization become a much simpler process to manage. And because improving the performance of the overall business is at stake, it creates discipline, focus, and a relentless desire for the team to win.
Understanding accountability took a while for the team to assimilate. Still, in the end, we overcame what I call the "justification phase" and started to deliver the targeted outcomes on time. We had become a fully engaged and accountable team.
Results
We continued our Daily Visual Management journey, and by the end of the second month, we were working within a natural environment of ownership, collaboration, and accountability. The team had internalized that everyone had skin in the game and that we could all be collectively successful or not.
This evolution in mindset and attitude produced tangible results. By the end of four months, we had reduced back-order by a whopping 91%, improved on-time delivery to customers by 33%, increased manufacturing yields by 39%, and improved plan attainment by 32%.
In Summary
Daily Visual Management is not just a Lean process improvement tool. It is a process that allows people at every level of the organization to understand the business goals and what is needed to succeed.
Daily Visual Management enables employees to see when performance is on track and find ways to countermeasure when it is not together. It creates a sense of collaboration where everyone is equally responsible for the team's success.
And it fosters a sense of "togetherness" that keeps employees engaged and eager to create possibilities to change the game.
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