An Obeya is a room (in our case, virtual) where all the information needed to steer a team, project, or company is readily available. We have built or seen Obeyas in dozens of lean projects, from appliance manufacturing to software development to major construction.

Simply put, an Obeya is a single location that provides professionals with the information they need to do their job.

In our Obeya at Modus Institute, we have large sections that track daily work and all the work we are responsible for—marketing, content creation, contracting, legal, maintenance, kaizen, and other tasks. Like most of you, we do this because we are a real business. Expectations placed on us don’t necessarily flow from left to right. The expectations can also change from day to day. The Obeya is constantly changing and shifting to provide relevant and timely information.

Anyone who has written a book posted a blog post, created a flyer, or shot a quick video knows that editing is a good part of knowledge work. We can call it other things, but professional teams rely on pair programming and peer review, even in software development. In banking, large loans require multiple signatures. It’s all just work.
The Always Evolving Obeya.

The invitation is to read our multi-part posts on some examples of the Obeya used by Modus Institute.

Our obeys are constantly evolving because new information comes along that requires analysis and, ultimately, actions and tasks to integrate that information into our objectives, both short—and long-term.

The Collaboration Equation: Strong Professionals Strong Teams Strong Delivery

ISBN
ISBN-10: 0989081281 / ISBN-13: 9780989081283

• Jim Benson

Description
The organizations we work for destroy confidence. We starve professionals of information, direction, psychological safety, and purpose by isolating workers in cubicles, teams into silos, and decisions into oblivion. Individuals drift and become alienated, waiting for direction that never comes.

This way of working…is not working. When individuals work in teams, they create value.

The Collaboration Equation helps individuals be professionals, teams take pride in their work, and companies become more resilient. This guide enables you to build visual systems where people can see their work and create cultures with the “Right Environment” so they can mind their system. Stop languishing in costly mediocrity.

Practical collaborative work creates its own rewards, its own psychological safety, its own agency, and its own quality control. It abhors defects, hidden issues, and poor communication and has the guts to work for real success.

The Collaboration Equation is a dynamic approach that draws from a lifetime of building collaborative systems to help readers create cultures where individuals know what success looks like, talk about it regularly, and achieve common goals.