Obeya · digital and hybrid

Digital Obeya:
the big room, live and hybrid

The big room. Wherever your team is.

Obeya puts goals, numbers, plans and problems on the wall together, so everyone sees the same thing and decides faster. CoVince makes that room digital: live Control Room walls, an AI CrewMate that thinks along, one shared board and video calls with whoever is not there.

Start the Syner Suite journey Watch the film

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What is a digital Obeya?

A digital Obeya is the Obeya method - the big room where a project's goals, numbers, plans and problems hang on the wall - moved onto live screens instead of paper. The whole team, on site or remote, sees the same up-to-date numbers, discusses deviations at once, and records every action with an owner and a date.

The film

Obeya in the immersive room, in three minutes.

How a team uses its Obeya walls in the Syner Suite: Plan, Performance and Improvement on the screens, tap a chart and see at once which action belongs to it, remote colleagues on the wall, and a CrewMate that answers questions about the numbers.

A presenter taps a chart on the Performance wall, next to the Improvement wall with actions and a remote colleague on screen

From the Syner Suite journey · spoken in English, with subtitles.

What is Obeya

One room with the whole project on the wall.

Obeya (大部屋) is Japanese for ‘big room’. Toyota used it in the 1990s to develop the first Prius: the chief engineer and the teams of every department worked in one space, with everything about the project visible on the walls. Today it is an established lean method, in manufacturing, healthcare, IT and government.

Visual management

What you can see, you do not have to ask. The state of things is on the wall, at a glance, for everyone.

One truth

Every department looks at the same numbers and the same plan, not at its own version in its own folder.

Problems surface early

A deviation stands out on the wall at once, and is discussed and solved there, not weeks later in a report.

1Goals and KPIs

What do we steer on, and are we on course? Every measure with a target: green, amber or red.

2Plan and milestones

The phases, the milestones and who picks up what. What has to happen this week?

3Problems and actions

What is not working, and what are we doing about it? Every action an owner and a date, until it is done.

4Decisions and risks

What has been decided, and what could still hit the project? So nobody takes a decision twice.

The rhythm

Not a poster but a rhythm: Plan, Do, Check, Act.

An Obeya lives on short, fixed moments in front of the wall. Each time the same questions from Deming’s PDCA cycle: what did we plan, what happened, where do we deviate, and which action do we take now?

DailyA fifteen-minute stand-up: what is red, who picks it up?
WeeklyWalk the walls together: plan, risks and decisions.
Per periodRecalibrate goals and KPIs: are we still steering on the right thing?

Digital and hybrid

Why the wall has to be digital too.

A paper Obeya only works for whoever stands in the room, and a printed chart is out of date before the marker is dry. A digital Obeya keeps the power of the wall and solves both.

Live numbers, no printouts

The tiles take their numbers from CoVince, from a CSV or from a connected source. The wall is always today’s.

Remote, at the same wall

Whoever works from home or another site sees the same board and joins the conversation.

Nothing gets lost

Actions, decisions and conversations stay in the journey, with who did what and when.

How to start

From a short description to a wall full of boards.

Describe what you want to followWith ‘Make with AI’ a briefing becomes a proposal: pages, measures with their source, phases and roles. Nothing reaches the board until you press Build.
Put it upOn a laptop, on one big screen, or spread over three or nine screens in an immersive room.
Work on it, togetherStand-ups, actions and conversations happen at the board, and everything comes back into the team’s journey.

Impression: a team discusses a kanban board on a wall of portrait screens

Control Room

Your Obeya walls, live.

The Control Room is the heart of a digital Obeya: a board of tiles spread over one, three or nine screens. Every screen gets a name, and the board shows what needs attention.

behind at risk late actions on track

Control Room wall with KPI tiles, trends and a gauge — A go-live wall: KPIs with their targets, trends and a readiness gauge.

Dozens of tile typesKPIs, gauges, trends, actions, decisions, roadmap, scrum, tables, map, news, video and a CrewMate tile.
A name per screenGoals, Progress, Actions, Risks: every screen its own wall, with what needs attention on that screen.
At a glanceHow many numbers are behind, at risk or on track, and how many actions are late. Tap and you see only those tiles.
Walk the screensThe stand-up goes screen by screen, so the whole team is at the same part of the wall.
Play on the wallOn three or nine screens Play opens on the overview of the whole wall; zooming into one screen is up to you.
Present, draw and sharePresent the board, draw on it during the conversation, and open it in a video call: everyone sees the same updates.

KPI page with trends, bars and a status table per clinic — Trends, bars and a status matrix you can read from three metres away.

Detail of a KPI: its course per week against the target — Tap a tile: the course per week, against the target.

Set-ups

Three screens, nine screens or three walls.

The same Control Room fits any room. Choose the set-up that suits your team and your rhythm; the board spreads over the screens or the walls.

Impression: three portrait screens on one wall with KPI tiles, CrewMate Iris and a risk screen, with three colleagues in front

One wall for the daily huddle.

Three portrait screens side by side: goals and KPIs on the left, the CrewMate in the middle, what needs attention on the right. Enough for a fifteen-minute stand-up with a small team, in an ordinary meeting room.

Suitssmall teams, one department, a first Obeya.

Impressions: AI pictures of the room, with real CoVince screenshots on the screens.

The CrewMate tile on the wall: Iris with her 3D avatar. Tap the talk button and ask the board. CrewMate Iris sets up a go-live plan, with owners and dates.

CrewMate AI

An AI team member in the room.

A CrewMate is an AI colleague that knows the journey and the board. In the Obeya you simply talk to it, out loud too. It proposes; you decide what goes on the wall.

Ask the boardThe CrewMate tile reads what is on the board and answers your questions about it, also about the news on the wall.
Charts from one sentence‘Intake per month against the target’ becomes a chart, using only columns that really are in your data.
Actions with an owner and a dateIt makes a plan, puts tasks on the task tile and the actions on the timeline, and fills in manual numbers when you press Apply.
Hands freeSwitch the conversation on and talk: the CrewMate hears when you are done, answers out loud and listens again.

Collaborate

From the wall to the work, in one place.

What comes up in the stand-up you work out on a board, in a document or a spreadsheet, in the same journey.

Canvas with post-its per step around a goal

Infinite canvas

SmartNote post-its, shapes, arrows and charts on a board without edges: make a problem analysis or an A3 here, together and at the same time.

Board with a timeline and an action list with owners and dates

Actions and timeline

Every action an owner and a date, visible on the board and on the journey’s timeline, until it is done.

Docs and grids

Documents and spreadsheets you edit together, next to the board, with the CrewMate at hand.

Video calls

Not in the room, still at the wall.

Video calling is part of CoVince itself, next to the board. No separate program, no second screen with a different story.

Open call via a linkPublic, journey members only, or whoever you invite, with a waiting room. Guests join without an account.
The board in the callShow your canvas or Control Room in the call; whatever changes, everyone sees at once.
Raise a hand and chatEveryone gets their turn, including whoever joins remotely.
Record, with transcript and summaryRecord the call and, if you want, have a transcript and a summary made of it.

Syner Suite

The Obeya as a real room.

Want the wall physically around you too? The Syner Suite is CoVince’s immersive room: nine portrait 86-inch screens in a U, three per wall, with the Control Room, the canvas and the call on them. Run it with a tap on the wall or with your voice.

Start the journey More about the Syner Suite Implementation roadmap: from hardware to adoption (Dutch)

Example