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PK Basics: Why Limit Your WIP Series, Post 1

Jim and Tonianne — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:17:08 +0000

A WIP Limit of 3 Makes Work Easy to Understand and Complete

In Personal Kanban we have only two rules. One of them is to limit your WIP.

That sounds simple enough. But what does limiting your WIP really imply?

This series describes what we mean by “WIP,” why it’s important to limit it, and – with all the competing demands on our time – how we can begin to go about doing just that.

WIP = Work-in-Progress

WIP is an acronym for “work-in-progress.” It’s the proverbial “stuff on your plate,” the “balls you are juggling.” It’s the work you’ve begun and currently have in process.

Now consider those things in your life that can and will at some point constitute your WIP: deliverables you have at the office, improvement projects piling up at home, monthly bills that need tending to, doctors appointments that need scheduling, phone calls that need returning. Now take into account the things you enjoy doing (but that often get put on the back burner), like taking a photography class or working on your yoga practice. Things you both need and want to accomplish can add up to a huge number of tasks you have to hold in your head simultaneously.

Some of these tasks are fairly low-impact. Others are more challenging and might require additional attention.

We want to limit the number of active tasks we juggle because we have a “capacity” – a maximum amount of work we can process at a given time. We simply cannot do more work than we can handle.

What Happens When We Don’t Limit WIP

When we exceed the amount of work we can handle, it heightens our distraction and decreases our concentration. Our attention to detail suffers, we leave things unfinished, or compromise the quality of our finished product. All of these outcomes create more work or us in the future.

Forgetting

When we forget something – whether it entails leaving out important details or missing a deadline – invariably someone else will point out our misstep. When they do, a conversation (most likely a pointed one) often ensues. Addressing and compensating for missteps takes time and effort, compounding cost, and ultimately frustration.

Leaving Things Unfinished

When we leave things incomplete we have two outcomes: (1) We never finish them or (2) We finish them later.

For case (1) it’s likely we’ve wasted time, effort, and resources.

In case (2) we return to the task at a later date, when the task’s context (its need, impact, or resources available) might have changed. Oftentimes that requires looking at the task and figuring out exactly where we left off, why we made the decisions we did, and what – exactly – was our preferred course to completion. This reorienting process of remembering and reorganizing likewise can consume time, and incur additional effort and resources.

Compromising Quality

A job poorly executed is sometimes worse than a job left incomplete. When work is done poorly, it usually contains defects. When defects become work multipliers, there are consequences down the line: defects can slow work down, break something else, or even hurt someone. Or they might just make your work product less helpful than it could have been had proper care been taken initially. If your defect is deemed serious enough to require repair (in essence, doing your work over again), first that defect must be discovered, then appreciated, then discussed, then deemed worthy of repair, then the repair needs to be identified, then acted upon.

And those are the easy ones.

When we compromise the quality of our work, we don’t just “do a bad job,” we leave someone to clean up an expensive and time consuming mess.

What Happens When We Do Limit WIP

We’d like to say that limiting WIP will solve all these problems, but it won’t. Nothing makes these things go away entirely.

However, not limiting WIP means we are pretty much guaranteed to fall victim to these time wasters, and we are guaranteed to do it often.

When we limit our WIP, we have less distractions. We are able to focus on correct decisions, completion, and quality.

When we set a WIP limit, we are telling ourselves and the world around us that we want to get work done quickly, and we want to do a quality job.

Even though prioritizing some tasks over others means some tasks have to wait, those tasks will still be completed sooner than they would have if we started them all right away. Since we are no longer paying the penalties for forgetting, incompletion, or poor quality, the work we finish is done faster and does not cause additional work.

What’s Next

This is just the tip of the iceberg as to why we should limit WIP. Over the upcoming months, we will be releasing more benefits to both Limiting Your WIP and Visualizing Your Work.

Until then, there are other related resources on this site. Simply check out articles tagged “WIP,” or visit the PK 101 page.

WIP: The Kidzban Book

Tonianne DeMaria Barry — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:33:49 +0000

My dad was magical.

When I was growing up, he turned everything into a game – studying, yard work, even combatting my fear of the Wicked Witch of the West. “Life should be fun!” he’d insist, invoking his own father’s optimism, a dictum in broken Italian dialect I struggle to remember but have long since forgotten. I can’t say if it was by way of nature or nurture, but there’s no doubt the DeMaria men believed in enjoying life. When situations that were decidedly unpleasant presented themselves, they simply viewed them as opportunities to get creative.

And creative they got.

Whether it was setting the seemingly interminable list of prepositions I had to learn by rote to the tune of Pop! Goes the Weasel (About, above, across, after, against, among, ar-rou-uuund! ), or sending me into the science class I struggled with carrying a Tupperware container filled with a freshly butchered calf’s brain (can I still distinguish between the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata? you betcha!), my father believed life was too short not to make even difficult tasks enjoyable.

And then came the bane of my existence: Mr. Pittman’s history class. I despised it, and the 10 pound textbook that I’m still convinced was written to combat chronic insomnia. All those foreign names to pronounce! All those dates to remember! Boooor-ring was my justification for coming perilously close to failing an exam. But my father assured me, “they’re just stories,” after which he proceeded to re-create tales from Greek mythology casting all my friends as characters. Thousands of “stories” and two history degrees later, I couldn’t agree with him more. Life – even the tedious parts – should be fun. With a little creativity in fact, they can be fun and educational.

That’s why I had to write this post. And why Kidzban is so important to me.

For the past year and a half, Jim and I have heard from countless people – some from as far away as South Africa and Japan – all excited to share inspiring accounts of how they use Personal Kanban (and a little creativity) to inspire their children. Among the most common uses for “Kidzban” (as we’ve affectionately come to call it) involves visualizing and tracking progress as it relates to household chores, family projects, homework and exam prep, extracurricular activities, religious pursuits, and even confidence building initiatives.

Lately however, another group of Kidzban practitioners is emerging. Increasingly we’re hearing from teachers and home educators who are using it with great success in and beyond the “traditional” classroom. In an attempt to maximize student performance – and make learning fun – they are utilizing Kidzban to establish course goals, visualize homeschool curriculum workflow, track progress (relative to the student’s personal best as well as to that of their peers), identify strengths and weakness, and implement and monitor solutions.

We look forward to sharing many of their stories with you in the upcoming publication from Modus Cooperandi Press Kidzban, the follow-up to our recently released Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.

So why all the enthusiasm about some sticky notes on a whiteboard, you ask?

Personal Kanban creates a narrative of “work” comprehensible to people of all ages and learning styles. Work ceases to be a collection of unrelated tasks and instead becomes a series of events that impact each other and flow from one to the next. With just a glance, users see the things they do well, identify areas that cause them to struggle, and gauge the distance from their goal. In the context of Personal Kanban – or Kidzban, in this case – struggle is not construed of as a failure but rather, as an opportunity for improvement. As a visual radiator, Personal Kanban lets the user know their success simply requires an alternate path. When that happens, they can look for root causes and then going forward, they can adjust their actions to suit.

Personal Kanban transforms our “work” into a system. It takes even the most tedious tasks and turns them into a game that’s appropriate for all ages.

Consistent among the stories we’ve heard is how children become excited about taking on even the most unpopular or even boring tasks, like picking up their toys or writing the letter “G” until they perfect it or making sure Fido has enough kibble in his bowl.

Not only is this “game” a simple one, but it’s an evolutionary one, too. Because Personal Kanban reflects our ever-changing context, it creates a game with an ever changing board. It’s a game we can improve upon, so boredom is kept at bay.

Children “beating” their siblings (and even their parents) by completing the most chores becomes commonplace. Students “compete” not only with their classmates but with themselves, finishing their lessons quicker and with less error. In both cases we’ve discovered that upon task completion, kids often seek additional tasks, incentivized by the satisfaction they get from moving yet another sticky note into the “Done” column.

Games can assume myriad forms, from head-to-head battles, to problem solving, to role-play. Depending on the circumstance, kids can find themselves besting their brothers and sisters in individual performance, or they can team up – “swarm” on a problem to solve it quickly and effectively. Parents and educators alike are using visualization to build creative games aimed at specific outcomes and to reward specific behaviors.

In the end, the games themselves become an education.

Whether it entails chores or schoolwork, being able to visualize and focus on the task at hand as part of a system – with immediate and ultimate goals – allows kids to see their action’s trade-offs while learning the best way to exercise their options. They take responsibility for their action (as well as their inaction), and feel pride in a job well done, establishing their independence and buttressing their self-esteem.

Kidzban curtails arguments, energizes families, and leaves kids empowered.

As a visual radiator, the board offers reinforcement for their efforts. Every member of the family can see that they’ve been effective, that they contribute value. When one person gets hung up, they know where help is needed.

So tell us – how are YOU innovating with Kidzban? Are you interested in sharing your experiences or visualizations, or just want to hear more from other practitioners? Whether you’re a parent or educator or even a kid, we invite you to become part of the emerging Kidzban community of practice.

On Facebook:
“Like” the Personal Kanban page on Facebook to meet and engage with others interested in Kidzban.

On Twitter:
Whether you have questions, ideas, or experiences you want to share, be sure to add the hashtag #kidzban to your Tweet to ensure other members of the Kidzban community can join in on the conversation.

In the interim, be sure to check out some of our favorite Kidzban practitioners:

For an innovative approach to chores, see Janice’s One Kid’z Kanban Board
For ways to use Kidzban throughout the home, see Maritza’s Becoming and Agile Family
For incorporating Kidzban in the classroom, see Patty’s Not Out of Reach

And last but certainly not least…

Recently I had the extreme pleasure of stumbling upon the most delightful yet profoundly insightful videologs from two of Kidzban’s most perceptive practitioners: siblings Jillian and JoHanna – ages 8 and 11 respectively who, later with the help of 3 year old Joy – are Kidzban rockstars (and agilistas in the making). Don’t miss their dad Joseph’s Saturday Chores with Kanban series, part I and part II.

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part I
Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part II

And it’s just a hunch, but judging by the fun these young ladies are having helping out with the housework, I’m fairly certain they feel their dad is magical, too.

Image by Sprezzatura.

Complex Lives Pt 2: Visualizing Real Work

Jim Benson — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:43:36 +0000

In part one of Complex Lives, we set a Future in Progress (FIP) limit for Jessica, a busy and active single mom. Her goals were overwhelming her ability to get things done. So we reigned them in by giving her a FIP limit.

That was step one.

Step two is visualizing that FIP. Jessica was concerned because her triathlon regimen included both repetitive and non-repetitive tasks. She needed to consume the right amount of calories, be sure to take her meds, and of course work out. This would equate to three repetitive, monotonous tickets per day in Ready –> Doing –> Done.

Many tickets. Too little real information.

Getting the work done for the triathlon was of course, important, but Personal Kanban is built to be an information radiator. What was the real information she needed? This turned out to be:

what workouts did I do
when did I do them
did my caloric intake match the workouts
did I take my meds and, most important
am I being consistent or missing anything?

So here we see Jessica’s board. She just had a little white board, so we worked with the walls in her home. Backlog and Done are both off the board (on the walls where the board hung). Her spontaneous tasks still work through a Ready –> Doing –> Done value stream, those tasks were color coded between work, family, studying and other tasks. But there’s more here than that.

There are two additional “swim lanes” on this board. A swim lane is another value stream or dedicated horizontal lane on our board for special tasks.

The first swim lane is Triathlon Training. We have several metrics here:

Diet: each day net calories, water, and meds are measured. Calories are a number, meds and water are a checkmark for done.

Workout: Type, severity, and subjective well being are noted here. “20” is a 20 minute cardio. On Wednesday you can see “10 mile ride.” E,M,H are easy, medium and hard workouts. Smilies measure how Jessica subjectively felt about the workout.

She can then take these metrics and not only see adherence and progress, but also plan for future workouts.

The second swim lane is Jessica Studying for her Section 65 Certification. She told me that she studies by creating a study plan for herself, studying, and then testing herself on what she just did. So we set up a swim lane with a WIP of one. At any point, she can only be working on one module.

So with this, we took Jessica’s overwhelming combination of things in progress and goals and made them visible and actionable. Take the time to critically look at the different projects you have in flight. In the end, you want to get the work done, but your real aim is to understand what you’re doing. To get those projects done right, Jessica needed some dedicated swim lanes.

I’m willing to bet she’s not alone.

What is a Kanban?

Jim Benson — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:58:26 +0000

A kanban is a tool to visualize, organize, and complete work. The first official use of kanban can be traced to Taiichi Ohno’s work at Toyota. He needed a way to quickly communicate to all workers how much work was being done, in what state it was, and how the work was being done. His goal was to make work processes transparent – meaning he wanted everyone, not just managers to know what was “really” going on. The goal was to empower line workers to improve how Toyota worked. Everyone had a hand in making Toyota better.

Work moves across a kanban

In the image to the right we see two work flows with work flowing through them. The top part of the board shows three states: Backlog, Doing, and Done. Tasks move across this simple workflow.

In a subtle way, this is doing three main things:

Showing us the work we have in progress
Showing us all the work we haven’t gotten to yet
Showing us how efficiently we work

That’s it! That’s all there is to a kanban physically.

For personal kanban, we take the simplicity of this system and use it to help us understand how we do what we do and how long it takes to do it. Simply having clarity around our workload is a tremendous psychological gift.

The Five Somethings of Waste.

Jim Benson — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:11:27 +0000

Waste should be discarded.

What is waste?

For personal kanban, the Five Somethings of Waste are:

Something that reduces your performance
Something someone else could do much more efficiently
Something that takes more time than its worth
Something that isn’t your strength
Something you don’t like or want to do

What can you do about it?

Identify it
Understand it
Re-orient yourself to it
Outsource it
Delegate it
Automate it
Eliminate it

Well, that’s easy. Except there needs to be a “how” part.

Identify It – Notice the Five Somethings as they occur.

Understand It – Watch for patterns in tasks that satisfy any of the “Five Somethings.”

Re-Orient Yourself To It – How do you and that piece of work relate to each other? Is it truly necessary? Do you have to do it? Can it be modified to not be waste? What’s causing the waste? Can you do any of the following to it?

Outsource It - Contractors are everywhere. Use them.

Delegate It - Inside your team, find someone else who is better-suited.

Automate It - Spend some time making sure that a machine does it right, and never do it again.

Eliminate It - Find a way to never need to have that work done in the first place.

Your time is sacred, you only have a finite amount of it. I am willing to pay bookkeepers to do even the smallest amount of work simply because I find bookkeeping a fate worse than death. Other people pay me to do things they aren’t good at. We all have our strengths and things that fulfill us. Let your personal kanban help you uncover the good, and get rid of the waste.

Photo by: Simen Svale Skogsr