Page 195 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

176 The Disney Way

A similar type of planning center was established when we worked with
a large South African company that had 54 plants throughout the country.
The complex assignment involved installing a materials management system
over a three-year period. The first step was to figure out how to manage the
relevant mass of material. Borrowing from Pentagon jargon, a “war room”
was set up that allowed the project team to keep abreast of what was going on
and where. The room was approximately 25 feet by 35 feet, with 15-foot-high
walls where information could be displayed. So as not to waste valuable space,
the room was windowless.
On one wall were pinned the plans for the project, which enabled every-
one to know at a glance when training would start, when the software would
arrive, when the next general meeting was to take place. A special section
of the planning wall was reserved for messages. This became the commu-
nications center. We have found that although people often ignore e-mail
and telephone messages, somehow it’s harder to ignore a message when it’s
printed on a card and openly displayed. Perhaps the public nature of such
communication makes it more difficult to disregard.
Another wall of the center was dedicated to keeping everyone up to
date on what other team members were working on and how far along their
individual pieces of the project were. When a segment was completed, that
fact was posted in a special section. Another place was set aside for anyone
who had a problem. The project manager could walk in and see immediately
what difficulties lay ahead, then take the appropriate action. If someone was
having trouble getting accounting department approval of a costing method,
for example, the manager could step in and move the process along.
Occasionally, people who are greatly attached to their computer system
complain that all plans can be tracked online. “Why do we need a visual
display?” they ask.
The whole point of a planning center is to allow people to see a holistic
picture of the projects and activities throughout the organization. What’s
more, when two or three people congregate in an area where the significant
work of the company is visually displayed, often an impromptu meeting takes
place. People communicate better face-to-face; and, as discussed in Chapter
5, MIT research supports this conclusion. The quality of communication
improves markedly with proximity. Close contact encourages questions and
discussion, which is the kind of interaction needed to move projects along.
The planning center proved to be a valuable tool for a team we know that
ran a testing laboratory. Any team member could walk in and scan the wall for