Visual management: concept and implementation

The Visual management is a project management concept based on the power of visual perception. Its main objective is to make a set of information more readable and more memorable for a company's employees. The visual management has many advantages for project management and contributes to cross-team collaboration.

What is visual management?

The visual management is a principle belonging to Lean Management, a lean production management method invented by Toyota. It focuses on a set of communication techniques, based on the visual transmission of information and results. Its aim is to facilitate the dissemination of this information between all members of the same organization, through a visual approach that simplifies and increases operational efficiency tenfold. Today, agile practices have appropriated the concept of Visual management. They take advantage of its advantages to make fruitful a collaboration that must remain close, between multidisciplinary teams and the customer.

The interests of visual management

The Visual management is a tool, a means that centralizes information relating to a project to share it with the teams concerned. It offers an overview, which leads to a better understanding of the challenges and thus develops the motivation and involvement of employees. The Visual management has a number of advantages:

• It facilitates internal communication and encourages feedback;
• It improves the readability of information in order to increase its transmission tenfold;
• It favors work based on collaboration, interactivity and sharing;
• It increases employee involvement and promotes participatory management;
• It stimulates creativity and invites decision making;
• It facilitates the detection of important information, but also the possible discrepancies between the objectives set and the current results;
• It allows you to evaluate your action plan in real time to become more reactive, improve processes and better guide your decisions;
• It offers an orderly, transparent, dynamic, updated and simplified working environment.

How to implement visual management?

To take advantage of the advantages of Visual management, discover a multi-step action plan aimed at implementing agile practices for project management.

Forming a multidisciplinary work team

It is a question of grouping distinct professions within the same working group, in order to take advantage of different skills and visions that will advance the project. The interaction and collaboration of these varied profiles can result in faster, more effective and more creative progress. In addition, the Visual management is intended to be a tool for employees; it is therefore interesting to integrate them into the process.

Determining the visual management framework

Tracing the outlines of the project makes it possible to establish a method of visual management that will concretely fulfill its objectives. To do this, it is necessary to prioritize the problems that must be solved by the Visual management and thus be in a position to answer various questions:

• What is the scope of the project? ;
• What are the elements to be communicated? ;
• Who are they for? ;
• Where should they be posted? ;
• What budget should be allocated? ;
• What are the actions to be put in place?

Choosing your tools

The Visual management can rely on a wide variety of tools, perhaps even already used in the organization. The idea is to carry out an inventory of those that the company has and to study how to improve their efficiency. First of all, this involves thinking about their coherence according to the target. Eventually, this stage may lead to the deployment of new tools that will better meet its objectives.

Design the appearance and display

After selecting your tools, it is possible to determine which visual aspect to focus on. You should always try to facilitate the transmission of information: the visual should highlight it and standardize the display of projects in the workspace. Based on its shape, then identify the location of the tool.

Ensure the effectiveness of your approach

Throughout the project and at its end, it is necessary to ensure that the means used really make it easier to achieve its objectives. If necessary, it is necessary to be able to make changes and adjustments in a logic of continuous improvement, and therefore regularly question your employees about their perception of the solution in order to assess its effectiveness.

What are the tools of visual management?

The solutions of Visual management can take very different forms: they can be based on the use of whiteboards, flipcharts with post-its or even be digitized and accessible via the Internet.

‍

Digital signage is an ideal medium for the dissemination of information as part of a project of Visual management. It has a strong capacity for attraction, promotes memory and has the advantage of always being contextualized thanks to the real-time update. Screens can be placed in different areas of the company and are an effective replacement for whiteboards. The Cenareo solution dedicated to digital signage in business is an ergonomic, intuitive and inclusive tool. Easy to use, it is automatically deployed on all the tools of the Digital workplace and participates in the integration of all employees. It allows you to broadcast information instantly on all your screens, for ever more functional and up-to-date project management.

‍

As part of a project of Visual management, the project dashboard should include a certain amount of relevant information, including:

• Information relating to the operational progress: this section is intended to discover at a glance the progress of the project and the tasks assigned to each person. It offers an overview and effective daily monitoring to easily detect blocking points;
• Highlights: deadlines and time milestones, scheduled meetings between teams and with the client;
• performance indicators;
• Feedback and observations: in the form of a list, a lot of information can be compiled for the continuous improvement of future project management.

To illustrate these data, it is possible to use representations that look like:

• color wheels;
• Charts, such as the Eisenhower matrix, the P.E.R.T chart, or the Gantt chart;
• Mental map also called mind mapping.

‍

The important thing remains to implement these tools in order to include all employees and to simplify project management. They must therefore be facilitators, accessible to all and engaging. The Cenareo solution dedicated to digital signage makes it possible to set up a Visual management effective, promoting better collaboration and more cohesiveness to increase the productivity of your teams.