Pulse meetings & Daily management

The pulse meeting is a popular way of working in many industries. A short reconciliation that helps each team reach their goals. The pulse board in Boards on Fire gives all employees an updated, common picture of the situation. How are we doing? What to do? Who will do it?

  • Flexible digital dashboards
  • Capture deviations & make decisions
  • Distribute today's tasks
  • Visualize relevant KPIs in real time
  • Increase participation and commitment

The pulse meeting agenda

What is a pulse dashboard for daily management? And what function do pulse meetings fulfill in a business? Pulse meetings are for several reasons a popular way of working in many different businesses and industries. In short, the pulse meeting aims to help the business achieve its goals. A short reconciliation that is done at regular intervals (hence the pulse) where, for example, a team, a department or other working group follows up what has been done since the last meeting, what is to be done until the next meeting, they capture any deviations and make quick decisions about how to handle them.

Daily management = daily pulse

Många håller sina pulsmöten dagligen och därför kallas pulsen ofta för daglig styrning. Oavsett hur ofta pulsmötet hålls är det viktigt att deltagarna är förberedda, all relevant information är uppdaterad före pulsmötet och att en överenskommen tidssatt agenda följs kontinuerligt vid varje möte. Då undviker man att sväva ut i onödiga diskussioner och kan istället fokusera på att lyfta upp avvikelser och fatta beslut kring aktiviteter som behöver genomföras.

Many operations hold their pulse meetings daily and therefore the pulse is often called daily management. Regardless of how often the pulse meeting is held, it is important that the participants are prepared, all relevant information is updated before the meeting and that an agreed scheduled agenda is followed continuously at each meeting. Then you avoid unnecessary discussions and can instead focus on highlighting deviations and making decisions about activities that need to be carried out.

Pulse meeting dashboard

Of course, it is important that the content of the pulse dashboard is adapted to relevant goals, key figures and areas that apply to the part of the business that is being pulsed. In Boards on Fire, it's easy to develop the dashboard step by step. Above is an example of a simple "intro board" with a few components. A meeting timer, the safety cross to follow up on incidents and accidents, an activity list to plan how deviations should be handled and text and image components to share information about important things that are going on.

Pulse meetings at all levels

Properly executed, pulse meetings are an excellent tool for creating participation and increasing job satisfaction among all employees. A pulse meeting provides the foundation for a good dialogue within the team. But pulse meetings should be held at all levels in the organization so that important information can be escalated from a team on to, for example, department level or all the way to the management. If the team encounters a problem at its pulse meeting, that goes beyond their mandate, it can be moved on to management's pulse meeting for decision. In Boards on Fire digital dashboards, the information can flow automatically between the different levels in the pulse structure.

Pulse dashboard content (a digital dashboard of course)

The pulse meeting is held around the pulse dashboard, of course a digital dashboard if you ask us at Boards on Fire. The pulse board must visualize the current status so that all employees get an updated, common picture of the situation. In order for the information on the pulse board to be relevant, it should be clearly linked to the goals set for that particular part of the business.

It can be follow-up of health, safety and staffing. Key figures for quality, production, delivery, overheads and so on. On the pulse board, for example, target values or setpoints for the different areas are entered and compared with the actual outcome. At the pulse meeting, the participants follow up the outcome and highlight the deviations that have occurred and how they should be handled. There should therefore be some form of decision log on the pulse board and an activity list that indicates which activities are to be performed, who is responsible and when the activity is to be completed.

Link to continuous improvements

Det är också bra om det finns en direkt koppling från pulstavlan till förbättringsarbetet så att man enkelt även kan generera en förbättringsaktivitet utifrån de avvikelser som lyfts fram på pulsmötet. I Boards on Fire är den kopplingen enkel att sätta upp från vilken tavla som helst på alla nivåer i pulsstrukturen.

It is also good if there is a direct connection from the pulse board to the improvement work so that you can easily generate an improvement activity based on the deviations that are highlighted at the pulse meeting. In Boards on Fire, that connection is easy to set up from any board at all levels in the pulse structure.

Pulse board for daily management in Boards on Fire with various components for HSE, activities, staffing and more.

A more comprehensive pulse dashboard in Boards on Fire can look like the one above. Here we have added components for production follow-up, gauges that show the current status of, among other things, quality and delivery precision, attendance, connection to the ERP for financial key figures and a connection to Boards on Fire's module for continuous improvements.

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