Further professionalization of Obeya craftsmanship

Quint and the Obeya Association have entered into a partnership, allowing them to share knowledge and build an international community that will take Obeya to the next level. Quint already has a lot of experience in the field of Obeya and brings a lot of practical experience to the table.

Obeya is a system that helps organizations make complex decision-making sustainable and inclusive. More and more companies are discovering the power of Obeya. However, until two years ago, there was no worldwide home base for Obeya practitioners.

The first announcement of the association immediately went viral, clearly showing a need for an Obeya home base. “That’s when we started building the community to develop and professionalize Obeya practices. First, we ensured that everyone was speaking the same language when it comes to Obeya. One of the things this has resulted inis the eleven Obeya Principles framework that now forms theoretical basis for Obeya . Also, the Obeya Association organizes an annual Obeya summit where experts speak and case studies are discussed. For deeper learning, the organization offers a library of templates, articles, and training modules.

Quint has helped organizations with visual management over the past few years and uses Obeya more and more. “Quint advises large and complex organizations on Obeya in both Agile environments and organizational change processes.

Currently, Quint is one of the largest educators in this field, both online and live. It is good to have a common basis for quality, just like in the past with ITIL, Lean and Agile/Scrum,” according to Roelof Douwstra, founding partner of Quint. “If you want to train people, you need to do it right and offer certification. We are examining how to set this up and move towards qualitative standardization. Nothing is cast in stone yet, but it shows what it takes to reach a certain level. We appreciate that the Obeya Association has stepped up to develop a policy. Now everyone knows ‘this is what we mean with Obeya’. They succeed in bringing this to the international stage as an independent organization.

Quint is one of the first partners, and we would like to contribute our knowledge and expertise. There was a huge click from the moment we first came together, and this is an excellent basis for in-depth collaboration.”

Partners of the Obeya Association can issue digital badges to training participants

Dolf Reijnders of the Obeya Association also experienced that compatibility. “In recent years, more and more organizations have experienced how very useful Obeya is, but the field was not yet well-defined. This can only be done by working in collaboration with attractive professional parties like Quint. We multiply by sharing; ultimately, everyone will benefit when affiliated parties join us and share their knowledge and skills.”

The Obeya Association wants to establish definitions and arrange practical matters with its partners. “When an organization has to train hundreds of people, it might take three years. If you standardize the training, though, it can be done much faster. This creates a network of large and small parties that complement each other. Members who just started with Obeya can benefit from the knowledge of more experienced companies.

Developing a common ‘language’ is the first step for the association and its partners. Dolf Reijnders: “There are many catch-all concepts that everyone interprets in their own way. Furthermore, it is not so obvious that everyone knows which people you need to build Obeyas and host them. That is essential because it affects the management of an organization. Obeya is not something you do on the side. We work hard on a common language for strategy formation within and between organizations.”

Now the Obeya Association will determine the following steps to grow the international network with its partners. Next year, a study trip to Japan is planned to establish the link to Obeya’s roots. And on June3, 2022, the Worldwide Obeya Summit will take place for the second time, where Quint representatives will act as keynote speakers to share practical experiences. This online event should be an even greater success than the first summit in 2021, where more than 250 Obeya practitioners from 41 countries participated.

The Obeya Association and Quint ensure that professionals can use Obeya even more effectively by sharing their knowledge and building on the international community. As a first step, the Obeya Masters already trained by Quint will join the accreditation of the Obeya Association and will soon receive their digital badge.