Revolutionize your lean management with Obeya!
Obeya is Japanese and can be translated as " large room" or "big room", but in our latitudes it primarily refers to an innovative method of project management or lean management. But what exactly is Obeya? How does the method work and is it right for you?
"Obeya " or sometimes "Obeya of Obeya" is the name of the agile project management method developed by Takeshi Uchiyamada during his time as CEO of Toyota.
Partly because of this glorious idea, Takeshi Uchiyamada is today quite rightly regarded as a luminary of entrepreneurship and the creator of the famous Toyota Prius. Thanks to this method, the company has managed to enormously reduce the development time of a new vehicle from an average of 36 months to just 12 months. And all of this through lean production and good work organization!
Obeya: Definition
What exactly is Obeya?
The basis of the Obeya method is that all team leaders whose teams are working on a project meet regularly in a room to make important decisions.
At first glance, this is not necessarily a groundbreaking innovation, but what makes the technique special is the room and the participants.
The participants
The participants (often called "people" in the documentation) should be decision-makers from all the different groups that are part of the product team in order to create an optimal exchange.
The goal
The purpose of Obeya is to explain to all team members quickly and in as much detail as necessary what is being done, why and how. In all decisions, attention is paid to ensuring added value for the end customer (Goal Control and Improvement).
The process
The special thing about the room is that an Obeya room is only reserved for ONE project.
The walls can be used to visualize all the information that is important for the project and the room should always be accessible. This way, project members can refresh their knowledge at any time or add new information that should be discussed at the next meeting (visual management).
Originally, this was a real room that was covered in Post-Its and posters. Today, of course, there are already digital solutions and tools that make progress visualization even faster and easier.
Why Obeya?
As digitalization progresses and the pace of innovation in the VUCA world accelerates, teams working on a project are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary.
Whereas a few years ago, building a car mainly required engineers and mechanics, nowadays, for example, it also requires
- UX designers,
- app developers,
- audio technicians,
- product designers,
- and computer scientists.
This can easily lead to a so-called silo mentality . This means that each team produces its part of the product and in the end you try to put everything together like a puzzle. If there are then problems, the project has to be revised again to remove the obstacle.
Obeya optimizes communication. For example, it could happen with our car that the product designer plans a very flat hood for visual reasons. However, the engine to be installed would be far too large for this design. Regular meetings are held so that both teams don't waste a lot of time. In this way, a compromise can be found or a different path can be taken at an early stage and the obstacle does not arise in the first place.
This prevents waste and the teams really only do the work that is important for the finished product and ultimately for the customer (this is also known as LEAN management ). The customer is not interested in internal processes and problems, but only in the quality and price of the end product.
How is Obeya carried out?
Scheduling
The first thing to clarify is the frequency of the meetings. Some teams prefer to meet once a month, others meet every day.
Depending on the team and the circumstances, it should therefore be decided together when the meetings should take place. This can also change over the course of a project, with more frequent meetings often being required at the beginning and in the final stages of a project, and fewer in the middle.
Preparing the room
For a productive meeting, everything needed for project visualization should be available in the room. For example:
- Whiteboards,
- flipboards,
- post-its,
- markers and pens,
- Tables, preferably high tables,
- projectors or screens,
- Power supply, adapters, etc.
If you choose a digital form of Obeya , you will need other solutions accordingly:
- Collaboration software, digital blackboard or some form of digital project visualization based on new media;
- Video chat software for the online meetings;
- Hardware (laptops with working microphones).
The room can of course also be used by the individual groups as a workspace or it can function as a workshop room.
Preparation of the meeting
The purpose of the Obeya meeting is to get quick and easy answers to questions that the project teams cannot solve themselves. Good preparation with bullet points or project cards is therefore essential (Clear Project Data). The most important project progress should be shared as quickly and briefly as possible. This allows members of other teams to ask questions or share information if they think it is relevant to the topic.
However, it is not desirable to share details or talk at length about the approach. Before a team leader approaches the solution of a problem in Obeya, he should be sure that he cannot solve it internally in the team or with the help of an e-mail to a colleague. At the start of a project, these are often budget issues if a material or service is more expensive than expected. After all, it is the project manager or project sponsor who has to decide whether it is still possible to reallocate the budget.
Implementation
Step 1:
The meeting starts with a brief status update, nothing should be repeated or refreshed, as the documentation is ideally availableon the walls of the room (or in the digital tool).
There are several methods of project visualization, you can use a slightly adapted Scrum board or a Kanban board or develop your own concept. The PDCA cycle, a management process and visualization system based on 4 phases, is very often used. This allows tasks to be divided into a plan phase, a do phase, a check phase and an act phase.
Step 2:
When all project managers meet with their key stakeholders in Obeya, they should present their problems and, if possible, even propose several solution options . The team or the person in charge can then decide which option to choose.
Step 3:
The aim of Obeya is to ensure cross-departmental collaboration and to simplify decision-making processes. It can be seen as a kind of intermediate stage from hierarchical to agile working methods. This is because the teams can work in a self-organized manner and use agile methods, and if they encounter problems that they cannot solve themselves, help is made available to them.
Now you know all the information you need to introduce your own Obeya space. Do you know any other good tips for working optimally with project spaces? Share them in the comments!
Article translated from German