“Obeya” (大部屋) is Japanese for “Big room.” The term has been getting attention lately in the Lean community as a solution for service operations or project teams and is even conflated by some with production teams’ daily meetings on the shop floor, which don’t take place in a room other than the production shop itself.

On the other hand, the idea of bringing together in one room all the stakeholders in an issue, problem, or project to communicate face to face, find solutions and make decisions is not exactly new. It’s called a meeting, and those who wish to sound “Lean” without changing anything can call their meeting rooms “obeya.” Those who wish to dig deeper, however, find a more specific — and useful — concept, if not a panacea.