One place to see how your team is doing
Obeya means 'big room' in Japanese. A Japanese car maker used Obeya while developing a new car, bringing information together so everyone could work from a shared understanding and make decisions together. Obeya is more than a room or a board. It is an approach to reviewing progress, making decisions and taking action together. The board reflects the team's shared understanding, decisions and agreed actions.
From obeya room to digital board
An Obeya started as a room. An obeya room is a room where all the information about the work is displayed on the walls. The team gathers there, sees the same information and makes decisions together. Nobody has to read a report first.
That room still exists. But many teams no longer work in the same place every day. Anyone who works from home, at another location or on a different shift can't see a board on the wall. That's why the board can also be digital. The team chooses whether the board is on the wall or on a screen.
A digital board also does more. What is agreed in the meeting is immediately recorded on the relevant card. Decisions go into the board's decision log. Cards that show No recent progress or are Unassigned are flagged in the analysis before the meeting. And the team's board can be connected to the boards of other teams.
A room or a screen doesn't turn a group into an Obeya. It's about what the team does there every week: reviewing, choosing and agreeing together.
The same rhythm every week
The Navigator reviews what has changed and prepares the agenda.
A short meeting at the board to discuss what's off track and agree on next steps.
Agreed actions are recorded on the board, ready to review at the next meeting.
Obeya, lean and visual management
Obeya comes from lean: a way of working in which you remove waste and keep improving the work step by step. In a lean environment, teams often use boards to see how things are going. That is called visual management.
An Obeya is a form of visual management, with its own purpose. A daily start board shows what's happening today. An improvement board shows which ideas the team is trying out. An Obeya shows what the team is doing it for: where it wants to go, which goals support that and whether it's on track.
You can see this on the board in a few ways. Each card can be marked as On track, Needs attention, Stuck or Important, shown along the edge of the card. Metrics are shown as a chart next to the goals. And What's holding us back? and What we've learned keep improvement visible.
You don't need to know lean to work with an Obeya. If your organisation already works with lean, the board fits in with it.
Obeya alongside OGSM and OKR
Many organisations have a plan in a fixed format. An OGSM puts the ambition, the goals, the strategies and the measures on a single A4 sheet. With OKRs, you choose an objective with a few measurable key results. An Obeya doesn't replace such a plan. It's where the plan is turned into work every week.
| In the plan | On the Obeya board |
|---|---|
| OGSM: the O, the ambition | Why we do it |
| OGSM: the G, the measurable goals | The goals per lane |
| OGSM: the S, the strategies | Where we are heading: the direction of a lane |
| OGSM: the M, measures and actions | The metrics, and the steps in the months |
| OKR: the objective | The direction of a lane |
| OKR: the key results | The goals, each with a metric with a target value |
| OKR: the regular check-in | The meeting at the board |
Quarters aren't shown separately on the board. The board works with months, which show what needs to happen this quarter.
Three common misconceptions about Obeya
Why it works
- A goal with a clear owner and deadline is more likely to be achieved than a good intention alone.
- Tracking progress helps teams adjust before it's too late.
- People are more likely to follow through when they agree in advance on when they will act and what they will do.
Metrics influence behaviour, sometimes in unintended ways. Before adding a metric to the board, consider the behaviour it might encourage.
Questions about Obeya
What does Obeya mean?
Obeya is Japanese for 'big room'. The word comes from the Japanese car industry, where a team brought all the information about a project together in one room. Today it stands for a way of setting direction together: reviewing the board every week to see where you stand, choosing what needs to happen next and agreeing who does what.
What is an obeya room?
An obeya room is a room where a team displays all the information about its work on the walls: goals, progress, problems and agreements. The team meets there to see where it stands and to make decisions. The board can also be on a screen, so that anyone working elsewhere sees the same information.
How does the Obeya method work?
The Obeya method revolves around three things: a board, a fixed meeting schedule and a role. The board shows the vision, the goals, the metrics, the steps per month and what's in the way. In a regular meeting at the board, the team discusses what's off track and agrees who does what. The Navigator prepares that meeting, guides discussions and makes sure agreed actions are followed up.
What is on an Obeya board?
From left to right: Why we do it, Where we are heading, the goals, the metrics, the steps per month, What's holding us back? and What went well. Each lane is one theme the team works on. The board also shows the golden rules for the meeting and the agenda.
What is the difference between Obeya and Kanban?
A Kanban board is about the work at hand: what's waiting, what's in progress and what's done. An Obeya is about direction: where the team wants to go, which goals support that and whether it's on track. They complement each other. In Midflyt, a Kanban board is linked to the team's Obeya, and the work on it stays linked to the goal it belongs to.
Where does Obeya come from?
From Japan, from the lean tradition of the car industry. While developing a new car, they brought all the people and all the information together in one room, so that decisions could be made faster and together. The idea works outside industry too: wherever a team wants to achieve goals together.
Start Monday knowing why your work matters.
Curious about what Obeya could do for your team?