Visual Management - Making it easier to be in control Thursday 30th July 2015 by David Hart and Jane Royden, E AND H Limited APM Scotland branch event in Edinburgh

1. Visual Management
Making it Easier to be in Control
Welcome
Your presenters are:
David Hart RPP FAPM MCMI
Jane Royden BSc MSc DMS MAPM

2. Project and programme management specialists
E AND H
A clear way forward…..

3. “The strategy sets an agenda that is
uncompromisingly ambitious, creative and radical.
Yet it can be encapsulated in just three words:
all projects succeed
– that is to create a world in which this is taken
for granted.”
APM 2020 Vision

4. • How we came across visual management
• What visual management is – what is visual and what
isn’t
• The background theory
• Demo of Targetprocess – visual management
software we use and recommend to our clients
• Visual management in practice – where it adds value.
Presentation Outline

5. • What planning and management tools do you use?
• How effective are they – what is frustrating?
Your World?

6. • Organisations without a project culture
• Diverse projects – people change, business change, IT
• Need for tools to help control
• Limited project management maturity in most
organisations.
Our World:

7. What is Visual Management?

8. Charts & GraphsGantt Chart
Common Visual Tools:

9. MS Excel
MS Project
Non-visual management systems:

10. What is good visualisation?

11. • PM increasingly complex
• Visualisation can enable us to display more complex
information in a way that can be understood
• Saving time and money or just pretty graphics?
• Conveys relevant information clearly and simply
supporting decision making and action taking.
What is good visualisation?

12. • Agile project management, especially in IT, has
added new dimension to visualisation.
• Kanban boards – 2 dimensional representations
• With the importance of team and collaboration,
visibility is really essential
• We came across visual management being used for
Agile a few years ago and realised that the same
tools could add huge value in other areas.
Where has visual management come from?

13. Jacques Bertin, The Semiology of Graphics, 1967
Visualisation – the theory:

14. Visualisation Elements:

15. Two
quantitavie
parameters
of an object
in a flat
dimension.
Planar Variables:

16. X axis
represents
current
status
Y axis is
work
package
priority
Example – Kanban Board:

17. Retinal Variables
Six retinal variables colour, size, shape,
texture, orientation and hue

18. Retinal Variables
Can visualise
more than two
parameters at
the same time

19. Planar and Retinal Together!
Extra
information
on a Kanban
Board.

20. Data Patterns

21. Category – Grouping by Type
Phase 1 Phase 2
Feature A
Feature B

22. Timelines
September October November December
Work Area 1
Action or
Decision
Task 3
Milestone
20162015
20162015
Task 4
Task 2
Task 1 Milestone
Work Area 3
Task 5
Milestone
Task 1 Milestone
Milestone
Task 2 Milestone
MilestoneWork Area 4
Work Area 5
Task 6
Work Area 2
Task 1
Task 1
Task 1
September October November December
Milestone
Task 2 Milestone
Task 2
Action or
Decision

23. Networks – Links and Relations

24. Variables and Categories - Project Prioritisation

30. Build the Plan Together

31. Benefits Dependency Network

33. All that’s ok but….
Image courtesy of Maggie Smith at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

34. Visual Management Tools

35. • Visibility – single information source - everyone can
see what they need
• Collaboration – everyone working together
Everyone actively contributes
• Empowers the team to record progress and so frees
project manager up to manage by sharing the
administrative overhead
• Control – Project managers can have their
management view and set management controls
• Flexes – to the context – configure to suit your
project methodology / process.
Why we use VM software:

36. How could you use visual software tools?
Any thoughts?
If you knew how
visual management
might be useful –
what would it be?

38. Domain Model
For Programmes
and Projects

39. Basic Project
Process

40. Outputs
Workflow

41. Summary of the Benefits
• Empowers team members to take responsibility
• Enables project manager to control in both project
and non-project cultures
• Encourages collaboration through shared visual
representations – get everyone literally ‘on the
same page’
• Project Manager can configure processes and
controls in the background – that are then visible,
tangible and easy to follow. Everyone can see non-
compliance!!

42. Visual Management in Practice – Our Experiences
• The organisation that starts 300 projects a year and
has no idea of what happens to them!
• The senior manager /stakeholder with the constant
ad hoc progress update requests
• Progressing project issues
• Team member(s) who won‘t engage with the process
• Dissapates the ‘Vortex of Chaos‘ – enables you to
manage volumes and complexity (in a rapidly
changing environment)

43. Immediately
Post Go Live

44. Structure!!!

45. Collaboration

46. On the Screen…. Status
Annie
Steve
Jamie

47. Annie
On the Screen… Detail

49. Six Weeks Later

50. • Adopt an approach that fits with your
organisational context – we know visual
management is effective in organisations with
and without a mature project management
culture
• Use the full range of visual elements available –
but keep each view simple
• Use visualisation to present complex multi-
dimensional data
Getting the best out of Visual Management:

51. • Present summary information visually to your
top-team decision-makers
• Web-based visual management software is great
for collaborating across different
teams/organisations
• Most people work well visually – but not
everyone does, so tables and figures still need to
be available.
Getting the best out of Visual Management:

52. To find out more visit our website, where you
can register for a trial version of the software
http://www.eandhlimited.com/visual-management.htm
Register

53. david@eandhlimited.com
@projectjazz
jane@eandhlimited.com
@projectblues
http://www.eandhlimited.com/
visual-management.htm
Any
Questions?

54. This presentation was delivered at an
APM event
To find out more about upcoming
events please visit our website
www.apm.org.uk/events