Why this paper
Most organisations have an Obeya.
Very few use it to lead transformation.
In too many cases, Obeya has been reduced to:
a room with boards,
a reporting ritual,
a visually pleasing status update,
a place where everything is green and nothing truly changes.
High-performing organisations use Obeya very differently.
They use it as a leadership system — a place where strategy, execution, decisions, and learning converge in real time.
This paper explains how we design Obeya at Purple Salmon, and why Obeya — when done right — becomes the nerve centre of transformation in conditions of uncertainty.
The core belief: Obeya is not a tool, it is a system
Obeya is often presented as a visual management technique borrowed from Lean.
That framing is incomplete — and misleading.
At Purple Salmon, we consider Obeya as:
a sense-making space, not a reporting space
a decision engine, not a dashboard
a leadership arena, not a PMO artefact
An Obeya does not exist to show progress.
It exists to create clarity, tension, and choice.
If your Obeya feels calm, polite, and perfectly green…
it is probably not doing its job.
What Obeya really does in a transformation
When properly designed and led, Obeya enables five critical capabilities:
1. Collective sense-making in complexity
Transformation does not fail because of lack of data.
It fails because organisations cannot interpret reality together.
Obeya creates a shared view of:
where the organisation is,
what is changing,
what is uncertain,
what really matters now.
It replaces fragmented interpretations with a single narrative of reality, continuously updated.
2. Rhythm and focus in continuous change
Most transformations collapse under overload.
Obeya introduces:
a clear cadence,
explicit priorities,
a limited set of strategic tensions to work on.
It answers, relentlessly:
What matters now?
What can wait?
What are we choosing not to do?
Without rhythm, transformation becomes noise. Obeya is how organisations regain tempo.
3. Fast and conscious decision loops
Obeya is not about tracking actions.
It is about making decisions visible.
A well-designed Obeya:
surfaces trade-offs,
clarifies ownership,
accelerates escalation,
shortens decision latency.
This is essential in environments where waiting for certainty means falling behind.
4. Strategy made tangible
Strategy often lives in slides, documents, or executive conversations.
Obeya brings strategy into the open:
strategic intents become explicit,
hypotheses are tested against reality,
contradictions between ambition and execution are exposed.
Obeya is where strategy stops being abstract and starts being operationally challenged.
5. Organisational learning, not just delivery
Transformation is learning at scale.
Obeya creates a space where:
assumptions are challenged,
failures are examined without blame,
learning is captured and reused.
Without learning loops, Obeya becomes a theatre of activity.
With learning loops, it becomes a compounding system.
Why most Obeyas fail
In our experience, Obeya rarely fails because of design.
It fails because of leadership behaviour.
Common failure patterns include:
Leaders using Obeya to control instead of to understand
Avoidance of real tensions to preserve harmony
KPIs replacing conversations
Decisions postponed instead of made
Obeya disconnected from real power and governance
When this happens, Obeya becomes:
visually impressive,
emotionally safe,
strategically irrelevant.
The Purple Salmon design principles
When we design an Obeya, we start with leadership intent, not with boards.
1. Obeya starts from purpose, not metrics
Before defining indicators, we clarify:
what transformation this Obeya serves,
what decisions it must enable,
what tensions it must surface.
Metrics follow meaning — not the other way around.
2. Governance is designed before visuals
We explicitly design:
who shows up,
who decides,
how escalation works,
what happens when trade-offs appear.
An Obeya without decision authority is just a wall.
3. Leadership presence is non-negotiable
Obeya is not delegated.
Senior leaders must:
be present,
be curious,
tolerate discomfort,
model learning and accountability.
Obeya exposes leadership maturity more than organisational maturity.
4. Tension is designed in, not avoided
A good Obeya makes contradictions visible:
strategy vs capacity
ambition vs reality
customer promise vs operational limits
If there is no tension, the system is lying.
5. Obeya evolves with the transformation
Obeya is not static.
As transformation progresses:
questions change,
risks shift,
priorities evolve.
The Obeya must adapt — or it becomes obsolete.
What Obeya ultimately reveals
Obeya does not primarily reveal performance gaps.
It reveals:
how decisions are really made,
how power flows,
how learning happens,
how leaders show up under pressure.
That is why Obeya is never “just” a tool.
It is a mirror.
In conclusion
In a world of uncertainty, organisations do not fail because they lack dashboards.
They fail because they cannot see, decide, and learn together fast enough.
When designed and led intentionally, Obeya becomes:
a transformation cockpit,
a leadership accelerator,
a system that turns complexity into clarity.
And when it is not…
it becomes theatre.