Knowledge Base · Communication
What is a huddle board, and how do I set one up?
A huddle board is a visual management board that puts how the work stands where the whole team can see it, instead of leaving it in individual heads or buried in spreadsheets. A good starting board has four sections: Celebrations, KPIs and Trends, Action Items and Parking Lot, and Team Updates. Start with a whiteboard; do not overthink it.
Chapter 2 describes the huddle board, also called a visual management board, as the centre of the daily huddle and, in effect, the team's central nervous system. It might be a whiteboard on an office wall or a digital board such as Trello. Either way, a reader should be able to grasp the story in one look and share the same picture of where things stand. It is transparency made visible.
- Celebrations: wins, milestones and thanks, setting a positive tone and reinforcing gratitude.
- KPIs and Trends: your most important metrics shown as a trend over time, not just today's number. A metric in the red is the process showing you where to focus.
- Action Items and Parking Lot: obstacles from the huddle, with an owner and a due date, plus good ideas parked so meetings stay on track and ideas are not lost.
- Team Updates: announcements, upcoming deadlines and best practices worth sharing.
To set one up this week, draw four large quadrants on a whiteboard and label them as above. Identify one or two KPIs, such as daily output, customer response time or error rate, and chart the number each day. Hold your first huddle around the board, then give the board 15 minutes daily over the next two weeks while the habit beds in.
Related questions
- How do I run a daily team huddle?
- How do I make performance visible to my whole team?
- What is a meeting "parking lot," and how do I use one?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 2 (Effective Communication for CI).