Method guide · Arrange people and ideas
Visualisation of Work
Use when work status is scattered across people and tools and needs a shared, regularly updated view.
- People
- 3–30
- Base procedure time
- 20 minutes
- Recording
- Shared record
Purpose: Build working relationships; Reflect and learn.
English guide
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How this method works
Arrange work status on a wall so that the people involved can view and update it together. Use when progress is held in individual heads or separate tools, forcing people to repeat the same explanation every time someone asks about the situation. Bring information onto one wall and use consistent positions and colour coding, so that everyone can keep track by looking at the same wall without repeated exchanges of explanations. The outputs are the work-information surface itself and a list showing the person responsible for updating each item and its next review point. If updates stop, stale information instead undermines trust. This is not suitable for permanent display of sensitive information such as personnel evaluations or contract amounts.
Phase schedule
Minutes are cumulative from the start of the base plan, not a live timer. Read scaling for any additional time. Phase controls do not advance automatically.
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- Narrow the scope to display0–2 minutes from the start (2 minutes)
Action: Narrow. Participation: Everyone.
Recording not separately specified for this phase
- Write the work2–9 minutes from the start (7 minutes)
Action: Write. Participation: Everyone.
Individual record
- Align positions and colours9–16 minutes from the start (7 minutes)
Action: Align. Participation: Everyone.
Shared record
- Assign owners16–20 minutes from the start (4 minutes)
Action: Assign. Participation: Everyone.
Shared record
Facilitation steps
- For 2 minutes, narrow the scope of work to display on the wall and agree the boundary for sensitive information that must not be included.
- For 7 minutes, each person writes current work and its status, one item per sticky note.
- For 4 minutes, arrange similar work items near each other and align marker colours by status.
- For 3 minutes, stand together in front of the wall and point out areas where the arrangement is difficult to understand.
- For 4 minutes, assign a person to update each item and add its next review point.
If something changes
If
After 5 minutes of arranging, the wall has more than twice as many sticky notes as participants.
Then
Consolidate notes with the same status into one note, and return the individual notes to their owners.
If
A note containing a personal evaluation or contract amount is posted during arrangement.
Then
Remove it immediately and agree to move it to a place seen only by the responsible person.
If
With 2 minutes remaining, 0 items have an assigned update owner.
Then
Select the 3 items updated most frequently and assign one owner to each on the spot.
Preparation
Materials
- One wall or whiteboard at least 200 cm wide for the information surface
- Sticky notes: 5 per person, in at least 2 colours
- Broad-tip markers: one per person
- Status markers such as magnets or dots: 3 per person
Room and setup
- One wall at least 200 cm wide that everyone can view at the same time
- One small table for replenishing markers and sticky notes
Adjust for people and time
With fewer than 3 people, collaborative updating adds no value and an individual work list is sufficient. For 3–30 people, share one wall and prepare sticky notes and status markers for the number of participants, with one marker pen per person. With more than 30 people, use separate walls by area of responsibility and duplicate only the items that need to be shared onto a central wall visible to everyone.
Safety and non-applicable situations
Agree which sensitive information is excluded before writing. Do not permanently display personnel evaluations or contract amounts. Remove such notes immediately and move them somewhere seen only by the responsible person. Assign update owners and review points so stale information does not undermine trust.
Manuscript's recorded references
These translate the original manuscript's source and rights claims. They remain separate from any current-page notice below; they do not establish new verification.
- Tim Beattie; Matt Takane: Visualisation of Work
https://openpracticelibrary.com/practice/visualisation-of-work/
CC BY 4.0 adaptation; changes made
- CC BY 4.0
Current-page licence notice
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Credits on the checked source page
- Named contributors on the source page: Tim Beattie, Matt Takane
- Contributors listed in the official practice source (repository handles): @tdbeattie, @mtakane, @ilaria66
Source page checked on 2026-10-17: Visualisation of Work.
Source lineage
CC BY-SA 4.0 — this site's adaptation and translation contributions · Legal code · Official source policy
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Diagram, print, and video language
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