ABSTRACT
Visual management is far more than using images instead of text-based documents to report the current situation. At the core of its theorisation is the development of a shared organisational language that embeds patterns of success. The endpoint to this thinking is that visual management is about facilitating the creation and use of a pattern language. Using pattern thinking in organisational management echoes the way that programmers developed a pattern language to present solutions to the most common coding problems in consistent ways that are known to be robust in any programming language. The intersection of culture, systems and organisations alongside the influence of Stafford Beer affirms the concept of the Viable System Model. The Viable System Model considers the attributes of an organisation that sustains it and ensures it continuity. In any organisational context, taking learning from the messy data of a business is itself challenging.
