David Mann - One of the Kings of Visual Management


On Dec 26, 2023, David Mann passed away.  For those of you that don't know, David was the author of the Shingo award winning book on using visual management to change culture.    His book, now in its third edition is shown here.


The book is easy to find on either Amazon or Thrift Books.   In this book, David uses real examples from his time at Steelcase to show the elements of visual management and the behaviors needed to leverage all the good from this visual management. The book was a breakthrough for those wishing to understand visual management. 

Let's spend a minute on visual management.  Unpacking this lean concept,  I coach that visual management is being able to discern normal from abnormal conditions at a glance so that an intervention can happen in real-time to keep things on track.   We want the workplace to talk to us through visual and audio clues.   In an business we want to know:

1. Are we ahead or behind?
2. Are we staffed appropriately?
3. Do we have enough to or too many supplies?
4. How are we performing against plan? 
5. What issues have we encountered? How often? What are we doing about them?
6. What work is next?

There are countless other things we would like to know in real-time.    Visual management is the process of creating a sustaining and improvement system to enable lean change efforts to thrive.

Mann says there are four elements of creating a lean culture through visual management. They are shown below along with their characteristics.
        

Element

Characteristics

Leader Standard Work

Daily checklists for leaders, supervisors and physician leaders that state explicit expectations for what it means to focus on the process

Visual Controls

Tools (charts) that reflect actual from expected at a glance.

Daily 

Accountability

Brief structured, tiered meetings focused on performance with visual action assignments and follow up to close the gap from actual vs. expected

Discipline

Leaders themselves consistently following and following up on others’ adherence to the process that define the first 3 elements

Visual management, leader standard work, and tiered huddles had been around over 40 years when David wrote his book.  What David was able to do was articulate the system as a suite of tools and behaviors in a way that makes it easy to understand and replicate.   Most all lean organizations have a daily management system or lean management system to assist in their sustaining and incremental improvement efforts.  If you can follow David's recipe, you can create a thriving improvement culture. 

If you haven't read David's' book, I would encourage you to get a copy.   This is one of the handful of books I recommend to anyone actively engaged in the lean improvement space.  (Gemba Kaizen by Masaaki Imai is another must read)

Rest in peace David, the lean community lost a giant.

Lean Blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw,  President and Sensei

Breakthrough Horizons

www.breakthroughhorizons.com  

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-bercaw-882a0a8/  



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