A common collective term for all sorts of work on vertical surfaces is wall-boarding, but we say “work murals”. You may also like “wallwork”, “information radiator”, or “drywall spreadsheets”. One of the first things to do in advancement is to visualise work, if it is not already visualised:
- map the flow, with Value Stream Mapping and other workflow methods.
- graph the work, with kanban and other graphical methods.
- get the big picture of all the work, with obeya
Current generally accepted practice is to visualise physically, on vertical surfaces, i.e. put it on the walls. Digital tools are useful, but there is no substitute for being able to see and touch the work. And everybody can see it.
Photograph the visualisation regularly in case anything happens . Some teams keep work both on a physical wall and in a digital tool. They manually synchronise the information because they see the benefits of both a physical wall version and a digital version. It’s not redundant when each adds different value. Software is available to do the synchronisation for you[1].
Remote workers present a challenge. Teams overcome this:
- send photos.
- maintain a wall at each location.
- point a remote-controlled, zoomable webcam at the work.
- webconference in to stand-ups, and ask locals to move cards for them.
- use a digital tool as well as the physical.
You may have to deal with the building-facilities barbarians who want to make you work in a sterile environment with pristine walls . Wear them down, be subversive, reclaim the walls for work:
- use low-stick adhesives: “Command” brand hooks” or “white-tac” (the blue stuff stains). We had success with one Command hook under a foamboard to take the weight, and white-tac across the top to hold it.
- use low-sticktape to make lines or labels.
- use “SuperSticky” Post-Itnotes (the normal ones fall off).
- sneak drawing pinsin up high where the hole can’t be seen, or hook paperclips over ceiling structure, then hang foamboards, posters, or decorations on fishing line.
- use old cube partitions as free-standing vertical surfaces.
- build three-sided pillars out of foam-boardabout 2 metres high and half a metre on each side; tape bottles of water inside the bottom for stability; and use them free-standing as work surfaces.
An essential part of a team having space that belongs to them is the ability to make their mark on it. There is a fashion amongst architects and facilities managers that office space should be as sterile as a laboratory. Security policy sometimes tries to do the same. This is psychopathic: it dehumanises the space and guarantees diminished performance. Workspace should be personal and colourful: marked and branded by those who work within it, to make it their own. Information on walls also serves to make them colourful and distinctive to the team.
[1] Three synchronisation tools we have heard of are Truffler, WallSync, and Agile Cards Scanner. We haven’t tried any of them.