With Kanban 101 we are aiming to give our readers a jump-start guide to get their Kanban engine running. For this purpose we are going to use Kanbanize, so you can start implementing what you learn right away. The board is the first gradient of Kanban. Without it there are going to be just random […]
Organizations generally adopt Lean to move the needle on specific indicators. They want to be more productive, improve the health of the organization, or increase revenue. But the Lean concept isn’t simply about improving metrics; it is about changing the culture. And changing the culture begins with leadership. Everyone from the top down needs to […]
“Starting work doesn’t generate value, starting work only costs money. Finishing work generates value.” – Klaus Leopold First, there was personal productivity. Then, everyone started talking about Agile teams. Today, it’s time to take it even higher. In this episode of the Lamp, we are talking about business alignment with Klaus Leopold. Klaus is an experienced computer scientist […]
Lean methods emerged from manufacturing, where conventional wisdom was that the goal is to produce as many goods as possible, as quickly as possible. When Taiichi Ohno introduced the Andon cord at Toyota, authorizing every employee on the assembly line to immediately halt production when they noticed a problem or defect, even people in his […]
Editor’s note: The article was updated in April 2018. Originally published in May 2016. Having an effective and efficient project or workflow management system in place is important for any company in the business for creating something new and useful. There are countless steps, multiple team members and a potentially endless set of features at […]
“Drucker said a long time ago: manage the work, not the workers.” – Andy Carmichael What if there was an easier way to get started with Kanban? Yes, there are principles, systems, values, practices… But all you really want to know is how to get started now. If that’s you, the Kanban Lens is for […]
In all too many organizations, “manager” is nothing more than a different job description and pay scale. Managers go to more and different meetings, and complete more and different paperwork, but aren’t fundamentally different from other employees. They don’t require more of a person as a mentor or as a leader, and they don’t require […]
Even highly successful, highly motivated people sometimes struggle with procrastination. They know what to do, but they just can’t bring themselves to get started. It’s a more common problem than you may think. According to psychologists, nearly 20% of all adults procrastinate some of the time. Procrastination is a destructive habit. It not only inhibits productivity, […]
One of the main properties of Kanban is limiting work in progress (WIP). This allows you to match any team’s development (or your personal) capacity. The most widely-adopted practice is to set WIP limits per column (workflow stage). However, it is also acceptable to establish limits per person or team. In my experience, WIP limits […]
High-quality project outcomes completed within a manageable time-frame – isn’t that what most businesses ultimately want to achieve? Of course that we all want projects to be completed on time and within initial budget. However, statistics are not so promising. We recently found some eye-opening data that caught our attention. According to PMI.org, for every […]