Digital vs Physical Obeya Rooms: what works best?

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The office as we know it has changed severely over the last year. Remote working is here to stay. Obviously this has had an impact on the use of visual management and Obeya Rooms.

We see organizations replicating their physical Obeya Room in online whiteboard collaboration tooling such as Mural or MIRO. Or we see companies starting out with Obeya digitally from scratch, without ever having had the full blown experience of a physical Obeya.

So what are best practices in setting up a digital Obeya? And what are the pros and cons considering digital vs physical Obeya Rooms?

“A digital Obeya really speeds up starting to work with Obeya. No more hassle in finding the right room or walls in the office to claim as the Obeya.”

Upsides of using a Digital Obeya

Pitfalls of using a digital Obeya

Although there are many benefits working with a digital Obeya, there are some pitfalls to take into account:

Using video conferencing tooling  it is easy to miss the non-verbal communication through body-language, which takes up to 55% of all communication (Mehrabian, Albert (1972). Nonverbal Communication). 

In my personal experience; sometimes real conversations and people are reduced to ‘voices in my ear’ while I am focussing on something else on my screen. Behaviour I would never show in a face-to-face situation!

We have seen digital Obeya’s that are so packed with milestones, metrics, data and information that we would be totally lost and miss seeing the big picture that we are used to see in a physical Obeya.

About AgileWalls

We are on a mission to make life easier and collaboration more effective. 

Good visual management leads to better collaboration. 

Using modular design as basic principle we can bring great visual management to your doorstep. Both physical and digital.

Digital Obeya Solutions

AgileWalls uses tried and tested designs and structures on online collaboration tooling such as Miro or MURAL. Our modular Obeya Set-up is ready to use and aided by our experience, you are up to speed in just a couple of iterations. 

We can:

  1. Transform an existing Obeya to a digital one
  2. Build custom Obeya’s from scratch.

Once the design of the Obeya is satisfactory, it is really easy to convert the digital Obeya into a physical Obeya!

Physical Obeya solutions

At AgileWalls we have years of experience in building revolutionary Obeya’s across multiple industries. Throughout the years, our designs developed:

  • A strong connection between digital and analog/physical collaboration spaces. 
  • Strong visual structures that make Obeya collaboration intuitive and easily accessible.

Our AgileWalls concept consists of modular, easy fix Wall Elements that can be combined to design and build physical Obeya’s. 

AgileWalls - Modular Whiteboard Wall GIF

Physical AgileWalls example

Curious how we can help you set up your Obeya Room? Find out more on AgileWalls.com

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