Visualize Everything — Share the Story
The 5th article in the 10 Steps to a Healthier Culture series.
We human beings tend to process visual information faster and more reliably than being told something or reading long documents. Yes, we can sit down and read a novel, but they are usually written by people very skilled at writing. They have a plot and suspense and draw you in.
Business memos, however, are rarely well-written or have punchy plot twists and love interests. Meetings happen once and are forgotten (or at least remembered very differently).
We need constant, real-time alignment.
We need to have a way to tell everyone the story of work, one that keeps them interested, aligned, and focused on completing the right work at the right time.
The truth is, we rarely spend time keeping our work coherent. Work happens too fast to create memos or write reports about our experience as it is unfolding. We live in an act-and-forget world. We, as individuals and groups, simply confront issues, quickly draw invalid conclusions, share them with no one, prematurely act, and move on. We work quickly and thoughtlessly.
Our work, our schedule, and our self-concepts are driven by interruptions: meetings, e-mail, phone calls, text messages, drop-in chats. All looking for information or support that we couldn’t give people in a less chaotic way.
Change and improvement cannot happen in such a thoughtless, unfocused environment.
Even with huddles or other alignment meetings, teams rapidly devolve into a group of people all going in different directions, acting on different assumptions, and then resorting to blaming others when the lack of communication inevitably leads to inappropriate actions.
When work is effectively visualized on a board that all can see and interact with, teams and the people on those teams create a real-time shared understanding of the work to be done, underway, and completed. They know who is doing what, what state that work is in, what needs to be discussed, what is completed, and the composition of all that work. Work becomes a coherent single unfolding story, as opposed to many hidden narratives.
When improvement opportunities (change) are visualized, people can see the opportunity costs, the perceived payoff, and the overall story of change on the team. Like with our work above, change then acquires coherence, which means that it’s not just a series of one-off good ideas, but change itself becomes part of the value the team provides. When that happens, taking on change-related tasks is something that responsible professionals just do.
For change or improvement to become part of your culture, it must be clear how it fits into daily work. The improvement opportunities need to be recognized, tested, and discussed. This is only possible if people can see how the change is needed, undertaken, and ultimately successful.
If you do not visualize the work and the change, people will be blind to them.
Jim Benson is the creator and co-author of Personal Kanban. His other books include Why Limit WIP, Why Plans Fail, and Beyond Agile. He is a winner of the Shingo Award for Excellence in Lean Thinking and the Brickell Key Award. He teaches online at Modus Institute and consults regularly, helping clients in all verticals create better ways of working. He regularly keynotes Agile and Lean conferences, focusing on the future of work.
