Daily management is, in my experience, a misunderstood concept in modern operations. It is often treated as a fixed routine, a short meeting at the same time every day. But the real question is not how often we meet, it is how long we let the system move in the wrong direction before we notice. In practice, this is about feedback, variation and rhythm. When customer demand shifts from minute to minute, a daily meeting will not be enough. When the flow is more stable, too frequent check ins just create administration. In this article I share my view on how daily management becomes a way of thinking and learning rather than just another meeting in the calendar.
So, why am I saying the term daily management is misleading? It is because it suggests that the value lies in the frequency, that we should gather every day, period. But at its core it is not about doing something daily, it is about feedback. We need forums and structures that give us feedback from the system we manage, at the right time, to the right people, in the right way. For some operations this might mean every five minutes, for others once a week.
The central question is therefore not when we manage, but how long we allow the system to move in a certain direction before we notice it. How many customer needs - or flow units - pass through our function before we pause and compare planned versus actual outcomes? The longer we wait, the greater the deviations will be. But check-ins that are too frequent and lack a clear purpose only create administration. The balance is determined by the amount of variation in the system.
Variation sets the rhythm
In an operation with high variation, management has to happen faster, sometimes continuously. Think of a burger restaurant: customer demand changes all the time. Someone walks into the restaurant, someone orders through the app, someone drives up to the pick-up window. The flow is constant but unpredictable. The restaurant cannot plan the exact number of customers the day before. Instead, they have built a visual system that makes customer demand visible in real time. Screens show orders, status, and delivery times. That is a management system, but without meetings.
Here, management takes place all the time. The staff adjust their behaviour, move resources, and respond to the variation in the flow. They don’t necessarily measure volume in advance, but instead lead time, quality, and customer satisfaction. The “daily management” forum becomes something different in their world, a moment to analyse, reflect, and improve the next cycle.
And just like the rhythm must be adapted to the level of variation, the format must be adapted to the available resources. In a hamburger restaurant it is reasonable that everyone can gather in front of the board. In a larger, more complex organisation that is impossible. There, information needs to be available digitally and updated in real time. This is a crucial design decision: how do we make the system’s feedback visible to everyone who influences the flow, regardless of where they are?
From strict ritual to learning
Only when you have understood the purpose, to create visibility, shared understanding, and rapid adaptation, can you start to break the rules. A 15-minute meeting at the board is only the basic level. General Stanley McChrystal describes in Team of Teams how he for a period led up to 7,500 people in daily operational meetings of around 90 minutes. In several parallel digital forums, information was shared, obstacles were resolved, and decisions were coordinated. According to McChrystal, it was “the most efficient thing he’d ever done.”
The point is the same as for the hamburger restaurant: when variation increases, the rhythm of management has to follow, and the tools must be adapted accordingly. In a world where change is constant, management has to be both human and digital. Daily management should then not only be a meeting, but a learning forum where variation is analyzed, data is used to understand causes, and the next cycle is planned.
When management is used in this way, it stops being a ritual and becomes a way of thinking. A living system for learning, decision-making, and improvement.
- How often do you manage your system?
- Is your management rhythm relevant in relation to how quickly you need to be able to act?
I cast my vote for managing as often as needed, and at the same time we can agree that more meetings are not the solution. But honestly, if that is the immediate resistance in your organisation, then you have other problems to solve first.
Curious what this way of thinking about daily management could mean in your organisation?
No two operations have the same flows or the same constraints. If this article touched on challenges you recognize, just reach out and I'll be glad to share more from my work with daily management, feedback and flow efficiency.
And if you want to see how a digital system can support this in practice, you are welcome to take a closer look at our platform for continuous improvement.
