The most effective and successful businesses today are "data-driven": decisions and behaviors are guided by measurable performance and results. Top-level goals are set, metrics are chosen, and communicated across the company. Ideally, everyone in the company know the goals, and are focused on performance.

There is no shortage of data. We are awash in it... even the smallest web-enabled business, run by only a handful of people, has data from transactions, processes, and operations.

Even if your enterprise has the resources for a large-scale analytics effort there is an additional challenge: the conclusions from the analysis must be socialized and communicated to the workforce for action. Behaviors must change, and the changes must be tested. Did we make things better?

Data-driven success is hampered by the complex social context of the workplace. People are still individuals with their own minds and viewpoint, their spheres of concern and influence are varied and unique. And yet, this Team of people must drive the collection of processes that, hopefully, produce value for customers and owners.

"Visual workplace" methods are well established in the factory setting as a way to make significant and lasting quality and productivity improvements with minimal investment in changes to the workplace.

The concept of visual workplace relies on visual cues, graphical status indicators, and observable motion to help the participants in a process to better understand the state of their process, and to drive improvements and optimization. The concept asserts that people working in an uncluttered workplace, provided with simple visual indicators of state and progress, will naturally make improvements. Process improvement comes from making visible and communicating important process metrics directly to those who can best respond to them.

By this model, an enterprise visual workplace must be implemented in the context of people and processes providing access to live data, tailored to their role, so that they can analyze, interpret, and make meaningful changes. Social networking must be an integral part of this visual workplace.

Everyone on the Enterprise Team, from headquarters to the far corners of the world, need to follow and discuss the data. Individual Team members need access to data pertinent to their role, as well as metrics indicating overall company performance.