Chapter 06Management & GovernanceArticle 6.1
Visibility Changes Behaviour
Dashboards are useful when they convert backlog, stock, procurement and readiness signals into ownership and action.
- ProblemProblems hidden in spreadsheets and inboxes are not managed.
- SignalsBacklog, stage age, owner, priority, exceptions.
- DecisionWho acts next, by when, and when it counts as closed.
- ControlFollow-up until closure, then learning.
01Business problem
Many operational problems are not unknown. They are known to someone, recorded somewhere, and invisible to everyone who could act on them: a late order in a buyer's inbox, an overdue preservation task in a spreadsheet, a clarification waiting in a shared mailbox.
A problem nobody can see has weak governance by default. Nobody owns it, nobody knows how old it is, and nobody notices when it stops moving.
02Core concept
Visibility is the first step of governance, not the whole of it. Useful visibility shows, for each item:
- an owner: one person, not a department;
- a status: where it is in the process;
- an age: how long it has been there;
- a priority: what it affects;
- a next action: what happens next, and who does it;
- a closure rule: what counts as done.
Without these, a dashboard is another report. With them, it becomes a working tool for exception management, backlog control and escalation.
03Decision rule
Make an item visible together with its owner, age, priority and next action, and review it until it is closed.
Visibility makes accountability possible. Management behaviour decides whether it produces improvement: what gets asked about in reviews, what is escalated, and whether closure is checked.
04Signals and inputs
- Backlog
- Open items and their volume over time.
- Stage aging
- How long items sit at each step.
- Ownership
- Whether every item has a named owner.
- Priority
- What each item affects.
- Escalation
- Items past their limit.
- Workload
- Whether owners can realistically act.
05Model
- 01SignalSomething needs attention.
- 02VisibilityIt can be seen by the people who can act.
- 03OwnerOne person is responsible.
- 04ActionThe next step is defined.
- 05Follow-upProgress is checked against age and priority.
- 06ClosureThe item is closed by a clear rule.
- 07Learning and KPIPatterns feed back into the process and its measures.
06Worked example
Illustrative example
A backlog view that changes a meeting
Consider a weekly review that goes through a list of open procurement items line by line. The list is long and every item looks equal.
Show the same items by stage and age instead, with one owner per item and the items past their limit at the top. The meeting now starts with the oldest items at a critical stage, asks each owner for the next action and date, and closes an item only when the material is available.
Nothing in the data has changed. What has changed is what the meeting looks at first.
07Professional judgement
A dashboard does not improve performance. People who act on it do.
Visibility can also backfire. Measures that are watched get managed, sometimes at the expense of what they were meant to show: items closed early to improve an age chart, or work avoided because it would appear as backlog.
The judgement is in choosing a few measures that reflect real outcomes, reading them with the people responsible, and treating a bad number as a question rather than a verdict.
08Failure modes
Dashboard as another report
Data is shown but no decision changes.
ControlTie each view to an owner and a review routine.
Visibility without ownership
Everyone sees the problem and nobody acts.
ControlAssign one owner per item.
No age or priority
Old critical items look like new minor ones.
ControlShow age and priority together.
No closure rule
Items are closed on paper while the problem remains.
ControlDefine what closed means.
Measures gamed
Numbers improve while performance does not.
ControlReview measures together with outcomes.
Workload ignored
Owners carry more items than they can move.
ControlWatch workload alongside backlog.
09Field note
10Practical checklist
- Every visible item has one named owner.
- Status, age and priority are shown together.
- The next action and its date are recorded.
- A closure rule is defined.
- Items past their limit are escalated.
- Reviews start with the oldest critical items.
- Patterns are used to fix the process, not only the items.
11Connected intelligence
Experience
See this principle in practice
- Procurement, Expediting and Agreement SupportOperational experience
- Material Urgency WorkflowDigital product concept
- Supplier Information PortalDigital product concept
12Evidence and basis
The example is illustrative; no performance improvement is claimed for a specific dashboard. Basis: procedures, reporting and digital reporting responsibilities in the CV roles, and Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training.