The science behind Visual Management

Recently, Portia Tung was reviewing my session proposal on Visual Management (with Laurent Morisseau) to the XP Days Benelux 2009 conference. She commented that it would be nice if I could give some scientific background for all this Visual Management and taskboard stuff that I write about. Since half my family and many of my friends are scientists, this is a challenge too tempting to pass. The only thing I ask of Portia is to understand that this is not something I can put together in a couple of weeks! I will try to (slowly) start adding some scientific theory behind these writings.  Iteratively and incrementally, starting today.

By coincidence, last week my friend Ariel Aizemberg sent me a TED Talk video that is spot on the topic and makes a good starting point. This video is short (6 minutes), informative and entertaining. Even if you don’t care about science too much, you will surely enjoy the presentation style.

  1. W. David Stephenson’s avatar

    Wow! So glad to find your blog! It happened right when I was writing chapter on “Real-time management” for my “Democratizing Data to transform government, business and daily life” book. I place a heavy emphasis on visualization throughout the book, and am most interested — would love any references to case studies! — on how access to real-time data for entire workforces — not just managers — plus tools to interpret it can improve decision-making, empower workers, etc. Please feel free to email me @ D.StephensonATstephensonstrategiesDOTcom

    PS: here’s the Slideshare of my talk several weeks ago @ the Tableau users conference: http://bit.ly/xg6fH

  2. Simon Kirk’s avatar

    Hi Xavier. Dur, I can’t believe when we met at the coach’s gathering in the UK that I didn’t connect you and your blog. I hope I can make up for that by saying that I love this blog, and it’s great to see the connection to the science behind it here.

    This has some important implications for me in Systems Thinking, the building of Mental Models in order to realise the system at hand and build dynamic tension to allow an organisation to effect change. Great stuff!

  3. Adrian Eidelman’s avatar

    Excelente post X!

  4. Francie Van Wirkus’s avatar

    Great presentation! Thank you for breaking down the why behind why it works so well. And why it’s fun!