--- title: What Toyota's Open Office Experiment Can Teach Us About Productivity and Virtual Collaboration description: Collaboration, engagement, teamwork. 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As a busy professional, you might feel the constant sharing of information with your colleagues isn’t the best use of your time and only holds you back from getting work done. A German proverb says that a doctor and a boor know more than a doctor alone -- in other words, two heads are typically better than one. Historically, office floor plans were designed for increasing employees’ productivity with cubicle after cubicle a familiar sight in most corporations. This kind of floor plan encouraged employees to focus on their own projects and allowed them to avoid being interrupted at work. To the contrary, employees tended be oblivious when something happened to their neighbors. They might miss an opportunity to learn about what’s happening outside of his or her team. It's as if they're working as independent contractors. While working with Toyota in the mid-1980s, a construction company in Midwest removed the partition at their office after learning how Toyota had done a similar thing. It was more than just breaking down silos in engineering and manufacturing, but about creating more communication between employees in different divisions so that they could do their jobs better. Oobeya is a Japanese word that means “large room,” that usually contains a space where the walls are covered with components of a project, such as a schedules, drawings and metrics. This form of project management used in Asian companies, including Toyota, is a component of lean manufacturing to help a team manage projects efficiently and speed up the time it takes a product to go to market. We can see many offices applying the oobeya style floor plan. However, there is another obstacle breaking up the collaborative atmosphere at working place: **email**. Email is undoubtedly a great invention. However, email has been creating many black boxes since email contents, for good reason, aren't intended to be shared with the entire organization. So what happens when a customer sends his or her claim by an email but their customer support staff is off on vacation? Email culture can create this cubicle-type of office, but virtually. Then the [Enterprise 2.0 movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_2.0), the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, started to become popular in the 2000’s.  However, software encouraged employees to chat with their colleagues about non-business related matters endlessly, i.e. “Did you watch Giants game last night?” or “Have you ever been to a sushi-bar on Mission Street?”  The reason why the movement of Enterprise 2.0 was dismissed was because social software didn’t encourage them to communicate with each other related to their business. The oobeya concept is team-oriented -- it helps teams visualize the entire product development process. Think of it as the display boards in the office to keep a team on track using a highly structured but simple system. Kintone is a virtual manifestation of oobeya method that breaks down walls between teams and the information they need to do their jobs accurately and efficiently. That’s what I love about Kintone. I love how my colleagues and I are never in the dark about where a project stands or which sales lead needs attention. We spend less time searching for information in our emails and spreadsheets and more time getting strategic work done. This kind of transparency and collaboration is especially helpful while I’m working out in the field and need access to the most updated notes about a client or real-time analytics for quick reporting to make smart decisions about where to focus my energy next. If you’re ready to try out the oobeya approach, you don’t need to invest in demolition tools to tear down the walls at your company. Just give Kintone a try. [![building business apps is easy.](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/1857320/e0c342f5-f1c5-4cbe-b670-d37717ad307b.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/1857320/e0c342f5-f1c5-4cbe-b670-d37717ad307b) [![Kintone Free Trial CTA](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/1857320/a0c9f62e-cc45-42e5-ade0-913fa2ddcd53.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/1857320/a0c9f62e-cc45-42e5-ade0-913fa2ddcd53) [![](https://blog.kintone.com/hubfs/Yu.png)](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/author/yu-tanabe) About the Author [Yu Tanabe](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/author/yu-tanabe) Recommended Posts Up Next [Construction Business Owner Feature: Why Projects Fail and How to Reverse Course](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/construction-business-project-management-application) Previous [Innovation Guru Shares Best Techniques Every Leader Needs For Quickly Creating Breakthrough Ideas](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/best-ways-create-new-ideas-workplace) [Back to Business with Heart <3 Blog Page](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart) ### Subscribe to Blog #### Recommended Posts [![](https://blog.kintone.com/hubfs/Kintone%20%281%29-Jun-30-2026-04-48-58-0381-AM.png)](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/replace-microsoft-project-online-with-no-code-tools) Digital Transformation ##### Replace Microsoft Project Online With No-Code Tools Microsoft Project Online officially retires on September 30, 2026. After more than a decade as a core platform for project scheduling and portfolio management, the service will no longer be available after that date. But for many teams, this retirement is also... [Read More »](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/replace-microsoft-project-online-with-no-code-tools) [![Kintone Blog - 7 Steps to Redesign a Broken Business Process](https://blog.kintone.com/hubfs/Steps%20to%20Redesign%20a%20Broken%20Business%20Process.png)](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/steps-to-redesign-broken-work-process) Improving Teamwork ##### 6 steps to redesign a broken business process There is something so satisfying about fixing something that is broken. No matter your level of technical prowess or how complex the “something” is, it just feels good to fix things. However, we’re often guilty of tolerating broken things and not taking the in... [Read More »](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/steps-to-redesign-broken-work-process) [![project management pitfalls and how to avoid them - Kintone Blog](https://blog.kintone.com/hubfs/project-management-pitfalls-and-how-to-avoid-them.jpg)](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/project-management-pitfalls-how-to-avoid-them) Improving Teamwork ##### Project Management Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them Any undertaking—big or small—runs the risk of failing. And a poorly planned project is doomed to meet the same fate as Ross’s couch on the show Friends. So how do you avoid Ross-and-the-couch style project management? Hint: yelling “Pivot!” isn’t enough. For s... [Read More »](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/project-management-pitfalls-how-to-avoid-them) [![](https://blog.kintone.com/hubfs/number-one-way-improve-team-communication.png)](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/the-number-one-way-improve-team-communication) Improving Teamwork ##### The Number One Way to Improve Your Team Communication Does your team have good communication? It’s a question you should ask often—and don’t dismiss any problems if the answer isn’t “absolutely.” Why? If you do, it will likely cost you. In a report called “The Cost of Poor Communication” by David Grossman, a surv... [Read More »](https://blog.kintone.com/business-with-heart/the-number-one-way-improve-team-communication) ### Try Kintone For Free! Our clients have built and deployed over 340,000 Kintone applications. Join them by signing up for a free trial–no credit card required–or scheduling a customized product demo. 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