Some folks may wonder what the heck I mean by “two types.” Within the context of a lean management system, we can make a distinction between visual process performance (VPP) and visual process adherence (VPA).

Visual process performance (VPP). These are typically metric-based visuals that provide users with meaningful insight into the health of the process or value stream. For example, we can easily relate to graphs that are displayed on tiered team meeting boards. These graphs, often categorized by people, quality, delivery, and cost-type buckets, trend and compare performance to targets. They help team members and leaders quickly identify and acknowledge performance gaps, which should naturally lead to root-cause identification and implementation of effective countermeasures. But VPP visuals are not limited simply to metrics. A classic example is a plan vs. actual chart (aka “production analysis board”). It typically captures hour (or pitch) by hour (or pitch) planned production, and compares that against actual performance for a given line or cell. As with all good visuals, this one should be worker-managed and will reflect the reason for any substantive misses.

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