Sherpa Alliance

Look around your business at how well the wall space is being used, which is often one of the most under-utilized assets in your business.  What if your walls could talk with more real-time, on-line-all-the-time information about your business, such as:

• An array of graphs providing a dash-board of key metrics
• A whiteboard in each department  subdivided into different categories of issues and forward planning items
• A war-room/situation room, for some of your most challenging issues and change initiatives, with the walls plastered with ideas, milestone plans and action lists.

These approaches tap into the power of more visual techniques to rev up our communication, collaboration and coordination, by helping us to keep in mind the parts and the whole of an issue (or array of issues) at the same time.
Think airliner cockpit, in which there is hardly a square inch of real-estate not dedicated to some kind of real-time, on-line-all-the-time information, regarding the detail complexity and dynamic complexity of the flight.  Aren’t you piloting something equally complex?

I know, I know, there are all kinds of reasons which occur to you for why-not:

• It will be hard to keep the information updated (so then, assign someone to be responsible for keeping each piece of information – a graph, an open-items-list of actions, a data sheet – updated on a prescribed frequency)
• Some of our information is sensitive and we have customers coming on site (so then, have an arrangement by which you can cover it up – inside a cabinet that can be closed, behind a screen which can be pulled down, on flipchart easels which can be turned around)
• Some of our information is confidential and we don’t want some or all categories of employees being able to see it (so then, design around that, so that information if only pulled up on display screens when needed)
• Too much information on the walls will be distracting and back-ground noise (actually you can have a lot of things around you and, as long as each has a place and is in its place, it isn’t distracting and back-ground noise  – its only if it’s out of place that is starts screaming at you!)

In reality these reasons-why-not can all be overcome with a little thought and design, and are massively outweighed by the reasons-why and the benefits that flow from more real-time, on-line-all-the-time information and revving up our communication, collaboration and coordination.