PERSONAL KANBAN

Presented at CCDDA Sue Johnston

It’s Understood Communication

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Table of ContentsPersonal Kanban

3 6 9page page page

16 18 24page page page

Intro TwoRules

What is

PK?

StagesHow it’s

UsedWrap

Introduction

Personal Kanban is a tool that lets you see your work and manage its flow.

I can’t promise it will change your life . . .

but it might.

This document summarizes a session I led at the Canadian Conference on Developmental Disabilities and Autism, June 2, 2015, in Winnipeg

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

Wrap

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Personal Kanban is a Communication Tool

PK tells a STORY

Personal kanban tells the story of your work and its value. “Sticky notes on a whiteboard” sounds simple. Guess what? It is. And it gets better. It’s easy, too.

PK creates CONVERSATION

Your personal kanban board creates opportunities to have meaningful conversations with the people you’re working with.

Few of us have work that’s predictable.

Our work is often driven by interruptions.

It’s work people don’t really understand.

And it’s work that feels like it will never end.

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Personal Kanban helps you see and manage your work

On each chapter intro page, you’ll see a mini version of a kanban board, designed to show you how the process works.

At its simplest, headings are ‘Options,’ ‘Doing’ and ‘Done.’

As you work through the booklet, we pull work from the Options column and you’ll see the sticky notes move across the three columns.

OPTIONS DOING DONETasks that areavailable for you to do. You pull from this column when you are ready.

Tasks you are actually working on at any one time.You limit their number.

Tasks that are completed. You define what ‘Done’ means.

What is Personal Kanban?A Brief History of Kanban

Stop Starting, Start Finishing

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

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A Brief History of Personal Kanban

The English translation of ‘kanban’ is ‘signal card.’ Small cards were used to identify steps in the manufacturing process.

When folks in software develop-ment began to use ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ processes, they adopted kanban.

Kanban was developed in post-war Japan. With no time or material to waste, Toyota needed more efficient manufacturing processes.

The focus on pull, rather than push, helps us avoid situations like the famous I Love Lucy scene on the assembly line at the chocolate factory.

Jim Benson, a city planner, developed a ‘personal’ version of kanban to improve individual work. And he wrote a book about it.

The key to the kanban process is that we pull work when we are ready to do it. It’s not pushed on us.

‘Kanban’ = Signal card

P U L Lnot

PUSH

‘Agile ‘ inSoftware

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Stop Starting Start Finishing

One of the reasons we often feel overwhelmed by our work is that we keep starting new projects before we finish those we already have on the go.

Personal Kanban makes everything you’re doing visible so you can see what you’re working on. The very act of noticing what you are doing helps you see what you can say, “Yes,” to.

Our work, home and social lives overlap and influence each other. Having them visible at a glance helps us see the things every new activity is competing with for our time, energy and attention. It helps us make good choices about what to do next.

It’s tempting to take on a new project when we’re at a stuck place. Knowing we can’t start the new thing till we finish something already started helps us stay focussed and finish.

And that feeling of accomplishment – that little dopamine hit –when we finish something is like “candy for the brain.”

Two Rules

Rule 1VisibilityGood choices

Rule 2LimitsBrain stuffZeigarnik effectContext switching

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

Wrap

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Just Two Rules

MAKE YOUR WORK VISIBLE

If you can view it, you can do it. When you can see the shape and nature of your work, it’s easier to get your brain around it.

The brain processes visual information much faster than words. Neuroscience is now confirming that a picture is worth 1,000 words.

LIMIT WORK IN PROCESS (WIP)

Work can flow smoothly when there’s ease in the system. If you try to squeeze in too much, everything grinds to a halt.

Limiting the number of things you’re working on at once helps you get things done. You stop starting and start finishing.

1 2

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Rule 1. Make work visible

WHY?When your work is visible, you can see:• The shape of your work• The bumps and bottlenecks• Where you’ve been• Where you’re going• What you’ve done• What’s left to do ONE WAYONE WAY DETOUR

D - 1

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Knowledge work uses one muscle . . .

• It likes a story• It has visual bias – processes visual info fastest• It seeks and recognizes patterns• It likes certainty – wants to know what’s coming• It needs completion (Zeigarnik effect)• It cannot multitask (context switching penalty)• That one muscle wants to involve the body

Rule 2. Limit work in progress

WHY?

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In the 1920s, Russian psychologist BlumaZeigarnik discovered . . .

• There’s a tendency or “need” to complete a task, once it’s started.

• Lack of closure from an unfinished task promotes continued cognitive effort.

• This interferes with your ability to focus on what you are currently doing.

• In other words, something you’ve started stays on your mind until you deal with it. It ties up mental energy and processing power, taking it away from what you’re doing.

• More recent studies have confirmed Zeigarnik’s theory.

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3

The ZeigarnikEffect

Unfinished Task

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The Context Switching Penalty

Switching from one project to another forces our brains to set up a new context for the second project. It’s has to put away the first one and all its related tools and ideas and pick up new tools and ideas. That adds to our cognitive load.

In other words, our brain has to work to adjust to the new context – and that takes time.

In his work with software developers, author Gerald Weinberg calculated the time lost as we switch contexts. His data shows that the more work we tackle at once, the more time we waste adjusting to the switch.

Limiting our work in progress, Rule 2, helps us avoid this context switching penalty.

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Rule 2. Limit work in progress

Why your boss/client wants you to limit your W.I.P.

Why YOU want to limit your W.I.P.

Completion Quality Focus Clarity

Visibility provides awareness• You understand your capacity• You focus on tasks at hand• You feel in control• You lose that helpless feeling• You do better work

Stages of Personal Kanban

Start simple

Prioritize

Adapt to suit you

Keep it simple

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

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Start simple – shape PK to suit your work and workstyle

Effort

Value At this stage, resist the (very common) temptation to overcomplicate your board. Keep things simple.

Kanban in Use

A typical PK board

A team board

An organizational board

Portable boards

Electronic boards

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

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Some examples of real boards

This is my personal kanban board, which hangs on the door to my office. It may be more elaborate than necessary.As my board evolved, I added rows for the two primary areas of my business so I could keep track of those. Recently, I added rows for marketing, admin and one for learning/volunteering.

I added a column for “waiting” and add a smaller sticky describing what/who I’m waiting for to the original sticky. My WIP limit is 3 – waiting doesn’t count.

I’ve colour coded meetings, creative work, writing and planning so I see where my time goes.

I have an area for things on the horizon and for recurring events (like bookkeeping).

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This team has been using kanban for just a few months and its board is evolving. It’s placed where not only team members can see it - their internal clients can see, for themselves, the status of their projects. Team members track the stages of every element of their projects.

The rows E and U stand for “Expedite” (“Emergencies?”) and “Unplanned.” If your work is interrupt-driven, make “Chaos,” “Surprises” or “Unplanned” one of the tasks of your Work In Progress limit.

Each member of this team has a set number of magnets with their name on it equal to their WIP limit. (The images are LEGO people.) When someone’s magnets are gone, s/he can’t take on new work till something is finished.

Did you notice they’ve written, “Stop starting, start finishing” right on the board?

Here’s an example of a team board for a marketing department.

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Every project in this organization is tracked and updated as work progresses. Departments have their own more detailed boards, such as the one on the previous page.

The division executives meet by the board twice a week and, within a few minutes, know the status of every initiative. They can make decisions required to clear bumps and bottlenecks that their departments can’t clear by themselves.

As you can imagine, it took several months to get to this stage. But, after two years, they have developed a cadence – and nobody misses a meeting.

This kanban board fills all four walls of a conference room.

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When I travel or work in someone else’s office, I take along my portable kanban– just a file folder.

The board below is in a small Moleskinenotebook.

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Yes, there are online versions of kanban. They’re good when your team is scattered, but are less powerful as they are not always visible.

Trello and LeanKit are two online kanban systems I have used. These screen shots are from the free versions. .

Summary

Fun for the whole family

Keeps meetings on track

Find out more

How to contact Sue

Options Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

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Some examples of real boards

People of any age can use Personal Kanban.

You can use it at home as well as at work. A friend has one for books she’s reading. I add personal things to my big board. But I have a separate board for sewing projects.

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Some examples of real boards

These ladies are using a PK-related process called Lean Coffee to manage their meeting.

Participants each bring a few topics they want to discuss. Using “dot voting” they select the topics of highest interest and place them in the Ready column.

One at a time, they pull topics into Doing and discuss each for a set time.

When time’s up, they can vote for more time or move the topic to Done.

Learn more at http://leancoffee.org/

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Jim Benson @OurFounder

Tonianne DeMaria Barry@Sprezzsatura

http://moduscooperandi.comhttp://personalkanban.com

These people “wrote the book” on Personal Kanban

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sue@itsunderstood.com

http://itsunderstood.comhttp://talktomebook.comhttp://leanintuit.com

@itsunderstood

The EndOptions Doing Done

Intro

What is PK?

Two Rules

Stages

Ways to Use

Wrap