Daily Management Board Examples: Beyond Red and Green Metrics

A daily management board should help a team decide what needs attention. Red and green squares show whether a result met a target, but they do not tell us whether performance changed. In this clinic example, I compare five board metrics with process behavior charts to show the difference.

Jump to the examples: The board · Clear follow-up · Mammo BPA · Colon cancer BPA · Depression screening · Huddle attendance

In 2018, I saw a post on Twitter with photos of Lean daily management practices in a hospital. The examples below come from that board.

The spirit of my post is not meant to come across as “they're doing it wrong” but more in the spirit of “they're doing a lot of great things, but it would be better if…”

Why Red-Green Metrics on Lean Daily Management Boards Cause Overreaction

I am keeping the organization anonymous because the point is to examine a common approach, not call out one team. Tracking performance and involving people in improvement are useful practices. We can build on them by asking what the data actually tells us.

A Common Lean Daily Management Board Example

Below is a photo that shows some daily metrics for a clinic. It's good to be tracking metrics and defining success. It can be helpful to have a target or goal. It's even better (as other photos showed) to be engaging everybody in Kaizen or continuous improvement so we're not just making people feel bad about the “red” data points that are worse than the goal. But, there's a risk that management and the team overreact to reds that are “noise” in the data. I'll show an alternative approach in this post.

Here is the board:

Why “How Did We Do Yesterday?” Is the Wrong Question

The tweet said the organization asked three questions:

1. How did we do yesterday?
2. Are we set up for success today?
3. Ideas to improve tomorrow?

With all due respect, I don't think those are the most helpful questions. “How did we do yesterday?” could be replaced with a better question of “Is yesterday's performance signal or noise?” It's possible for a metric to fluctuate between red and green (it depends on how the goal is set, which is an art in and of itself) and that fluctuation does NOT mean that anything has changed.

Asking “what happened yesterday?” might be a poor use of limited time if yesterday's data point (regardless of being red or green) is part of the routine variation that's exhibited by a “predictable” process. Every system (and metric) will show variation – the question is “how much?”

To the second question, “Are we set up for success today?” might imply a couple of things, such as:

• Will performance fluctuate into the green today through no result of any change to the system?
• Does the system perform consistently well enough to meet the goal?

Asking how to improve is important, but “improving tomorrow” isn't the same as “improving the system.” If a metric has fluctuated down into the red, waiting and doing nothing might lead to fluctuation back into the green the next day… before it fluctuates back into the red again…

Using Process Behavior Charts Instead of Daily Snapshots

As I write about in my book Measures of Success, “process behavior charts” are a method that's more helpful than a list of numbers with red and green color coding. It's not just about the visualization… it's about how we improve.

What These Lean Daily Management Metrics Really Show

Let's take a closer look at the metrics, one by one:

Clear Follow-Up

What can you tell from the metric? Some days, it's green (better than 60%) and some days it's red. How would you react to 10/15 being at 25%? Does that mean something changed for the worse? Is there a “signal” or is it just “noise?” Does the chart provide evidence of an unusual change, or should we investigate the causes of variation in the system as a whole? We have five reds and six greens. Three of our last four data points are red. What does that tell us?

What about data from September? Isn't October 1st the continuation of that system? Why would you start a new month with a literal blank slate? We can do better, as I blogged about here about starting the new year with blank charts.

Drawing a Process Behavior Chart can be done easily by hand, or you can use the free templates I provide.

The chart shows substantial routine variation without a signal under the rules being used. The calculated natural process limits extend below zero and above 100%, even though this percentage cannot. That does not mean every value in that range is equally likely. It tells us the current variation is broad relative to the target; the limits are not a guarantee of the next result.

There are no signals found in the chart (see my PDF handout about the 3 main signals we look for in a PBC).

Instead of asking “what happened yesterday?” it's more helpful to step back and ask systemic questions (and maybe using an A3 problem-solving approach):

• How can we make the system perform more consistently?
• How can we improve the system in a systematic way?

That requires process knowledge that I don't have as an outsider (I don't even know what the metric is measuring exactly).

In the chart above, it might be tempting to draw a “linear trend line” (which might help convince somebody that performance is getting worse). But, we have to be careful with linear trend lines, as they can mislead us in ways that a Process Behavior Chart will not (read more).

Mammo BPA

Here is the second metric:

Again, can you see trends there from the list of numbers and the colors? It's “visual” but is it as helpful as it could be? What does the Process Behavior Chart (PBC) show us?

Again, these points do not show a signal under the chart rules. The process is not consistently meeting its target. What would make the work more consistent? Is there agreed-upon standardized work, and what makes it difficult to follow?

Asking about yesterday's number in isolation might not give us the answer we need to improve the system. One other challenge with this data is that the “n” or denominator is pretty small, which is one reason this metric can fluctuate a lot. But, a more consistent process might fluctuate between 75% and 100% instead of zero and 100%.

Colon Cancer BPA

Here's the third metric:

What do you make of that? More red and green fluctuation. Do the last two data points establish that the problem is solved?

Let's look at the PBC:

Same story… no signals. We have a predictable system with more variation than we'd like. We almost, but don't quite, see eight consecutive points above the average, which would be another signal that the system has changed for the better.

As with all of these metrics, they aren't green every day… so it means we need to improve the system. Again, I'll suggest we can do so more effectively if we're less reactive and more systematic in our approach.

Depression Screening

Here's the next metric:

Again, green and red. Seeing a pattern? Maybe there's a pattern that each chart has green and red… but is any metric getting better or are they just fluctuating?

The PBC:

This chart also shows routine variation. Its calculated limits suggest a narrower range than the earlier examples, but they do not guarantee tomorrow's result. Performance is not consistently meeting the goal, so the team still has a reason to improve the system.

Huddle Attendance

The final metric, as a number, not a percentage:

Here is the PBC:

Again, it's predictable, but not capable of hitting our target consistently. We might ask why there are some days when attendance is zero… but that happens enough that there is probably some “common cause” that happens a lot instead of there being “special causes.” Instead of asking “what happened on the 15th?” we can ask a more systemic question about “what leads to the huddle not happening some days?”

What Improved Systems Look Like on a Process Behavior Chart

Here is an example I use in presentations about PBCs. It fluctuates between red and green without a signal. The chart alone does not justify a separate root-cause investigation for each red day. We can still study and improve the system, and we should act on known problems regardless of whether the aggregate metric signals.

And here's an example of an improved system where the average and the natural process limits have been shifted in a good way… (an example from the book):

In another example, the new lower natural process limit is at the target. That is stronger evidence of a system that can meet the goal consistently. It is still a prediction based on the observed process, not a promise that every future point will be green.

What Lean Leaders Should Change About Daily Management Boards

Start with one metric on your daily management board. Keep the data over time rather than erasing it at the start of each month. Show the target and a process behavior chart, and agree on how the team will distinguish a signal from routine variation.

Use the huddle to decide what to investigate, what improvement to test, and who will follow up. A stable process can still be unacceptable. And a known safety concern needs a response even when a chart has no signal.

For more help, see my free chart templates and webinars on interpreting performance metrics. How is your team using charts to change the conversation at its board?

Stop reacting to every up and down in your metrics

In Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, I show how Process Behavior Charts help leaders tell signals from routine variation, so they spend less time explaining noise and more time improving the work. The foreword is by Donald J. Wheeler.

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