Management by Sight

To world famous Toyota Way, based on the Toyota Production System success, has a very interesting concept that always caught my attention: Management by Sight


So what this all about? Let me try to explain the need for this:

• Manager, and why not engineers, are busy people who don't have time to crunch numbers to see how they're progressing in the project
• Everybody cares about measuring progress, but managers are just big fans of it
• So, we need something that people can look and instantaneously, and why not magically, can tell them whether they're on track or falling behind schedule

Once we all realize that we need some light here, we're ready to look into what Toyota discovered years ago: a simple chart that shows progress


But some conditions for the magic to work:

1. It has to be visual (obviously!)
2. It has to be public
3. It has to be periodically updated
4. It has to be easy to read
5. It has to be easy to understand
6. It's interpretation has to be clear
7. Only a few indicators should be considered per graph, don't try to show everything in just one chart
8. It has to be a communication vehicle for the team
9. It has to have real data, not massaging information should be allowed
10. It's a tool for the team, not just for managers