Comprehensive Guide to the Leading with Obeya Method
The Leading with Obeya (LWO) method is a complete visual management system for leadership teams, consisting of 5 integrated boards and 7 core principles. Developed from Toyota's original Obeya concept used during the Prius development project in the 1990s, the method has been refined and formalized by Tim Wiegel into a teachable, scalable system used by organizations worldwide across manufacturing, healthcare, technology, financial services, and other sectors.
The 5 Boards System Explained
Board 1 - Strategic Direction: This is where the team lays the fundamental framework for everything else in the Obeya. The team's goal or purpose is the starting point; from there the team determines the capabilities needed to achieve it and sets a strategic course. The result is a complete overview of everything that matters and the objectives the team chooses to work on. It answers "Where are we headed and what do we need to get there?" Reviewed once a quarter.
Board 2 - Performance: Here the team identifies and tracks progress and performance toward the strategic direction. Indicators show how well the team is performing, ambition levels show what is going well and what challenges remain, and key results are visible — helping the team prioritize on the right things. It answers "How well are we doing in terms of what's important?" Reviewed every two weeks.
Board 3 - Tough Problems: When an indicator shows the team consistently fails to reach its ambition levels, the team has hit the edge of its knowledge — a problem it does not yet have a clear solution to. A structured problem-solving method is used to tackle the root cause, free from bias and assumptions. The board shows the challenge to be understood, what the team has learned about the current situation, the experiments being run, and the next steps. It answers "What tough problems must we work on?" Worked on once or twice a week, typically 1-on-1 rather than with the full team.
Board 4 - Plan to Value: The plan shows the steps the team needs to take to reach its goals and how scarce people and resources are best deployed to create value — both externally for customers and internally for developing the organization and team. Value becomes visible through milestones and the smooth flow of work through the team's value streams. The board also shows the problems hindering the plan and how they are being handled. It answers "What's our plan to deliver value to our organization and customers?" Reviewed once every other two weeks.
Board 5 - Act and Respond: Plans are good, but tomorrow is uncertain — so a flexible, adaptive way of working is key. This is where the team addresses problems, requests, and new developments arising from across the organization. The outcomes are problem resolutions, new policy decisions, or actions that support the teams doing the valuable work. Typical contents include problems blocking planned actions or daily operations, requests that benefit performance or clarify policies, policy decisions to reinforce execution, and context worth sharing. It answers "How do we address issues that arise when doing the work?" Reviewed three times a week.
The 7 Principles Explained in Detail
Principle 1 - Think in systems and ownership: Everything the team needs to govern is made transparent on the Obeya, which gives peace of mind that everything that matters is in one place. The team learns how the system it is trying to govern works and how it responds to decisions. Every aspect on the Obeya is assigned to an owner, so the team can always see who it belongs to.
Principle 2 - Visualize shared context and problems: By visually displaying all key steering information with clear frameworks and tools for arriving at decisions and actions, the team makes the best use of its strongest sense — sight. This promotes effective alignment and mutual understanding, and helps avoid assumptions and thinking errors. By visualizing problems, the team sees them coming early, puts them in perspective, and arrives at better insights.
Principle 3 - Develop people: Respect for people means recognizing that we are constantly developing ourselves, individually and as a team. This requires trust and room to make mistakes. We work on our development consciously by taking the Obeya sessions, structured problem solving, and the methods we set up here to the teams we manage ourselves.
Principle 4 - Rhythm and Routine: We make sure we have the right meeting at the right time so we can keep our responsiveness high, while staying focused on the bigger picture. Meetings are effective because we discuss the right topics at the right time. Disciplined, well-prepared meetings make working with the Obeya increasingly effective — important issues can move from the shop floor to senior management within a day if needed.
Principle 5 - Keep improving: The Obeya is never finished. We are always on the lookout for ways to improve the way we work and the outcomes of our work. Continuous improvement isn't something we just talk about — it is visible on the walls, in the way we think and act during our meetings, and in our interaction with the teams we lead.
Principle 6 - Go and see: To learn from daily reality, we go and see where it all happens. This way we immediately see the impact of our policies — and avoid discussion and bad policy decision-making that is based only on assumptions.
Principle 7 - Cascade and connect: All teams are interconnected — top-down, bottom-up, throughout the whole organization and its core processes. Following this chain of teams clearly outlines the red thread of the organizational strategy. Every Obeya carries a representation of this parent strategy, and all teams are connected by well-timed dialogues, so important cases can easily be carried from the workplace to the board table.
See, learn and act together — the overarching idea at the heart of the Leading with Obeya method: as a team with a common goal, we respect each other and let the Obeya work for us. We accept the things we do not know and support each other in staying focused to avoid thinking errors. We make an effort to improve our results, take the time to understand each other, and reflect on our main actions to get closer and closer to our strategic goals.