All Entries in the "Expert" Category

Dependencies in Personal Kanban

Dependencies are things that occur in succession. One thing happens, then another thing can happen. Ideally, on a kanban, the value stream will visualize these transitions. For a value stream like this:
Analysis -> Creation -> Refinement -> Launch
refinement is dependent on both analysis and creation.
That neatly takes care of dependencies, but in our Personal Kanban [...]

Am I Productive, Efficient, or Effective?

Productivity: having the power to produce
Efficiency: the ratio of the output to the input of any system
Effectiveness: being able to bring about a desired result
Personal Kanban is considered a Productivity tool, because it gives us the power to produce more.  It is likewise said to increase Efficiency by limiting WIP and increasing focus which means we [...]

Respect Your Backlog and Manage It

Your backlog is bigger than it should be and it needs to be managed. Everyday people tell us how they are overwhelmed by their backlog, and cannot possibly manage it within a Personal Kanban because it could contain hundreds or thousands of tasks.
Let’s examine this.
On Stephen Smith’s blog, he describes using Personal Kanban to visualize [...]

Rapture – Training Your Mind for Completion

Don’t strain your brain, paint a train
You’ll be singing’ in the rain…
- Blondie
Your brain is a muscle. As we repeat certain actions, our “muscle memory” becomes comfortable with those actions, and programs itself to anticipate them. As it trains itself to anticipate them, it optimizes for them. This is the basis of kaizen, continuous improvement. [...]

Getting “Personal” with Your Kanban

So why call it “personal” if I can use it with my family, in the classroom, or with a team at the office?
In life and in business, we create value.  For Personal Kanban, “personal”  relates to  personal value.  Personal Kanban tracks and visualizes items of personal value – tasks, work, and goals.
Industrial-style kanban – [...]

WIP and Priorization: Recommended Portions

You’ve been hiking all morning and the mercury is nearing 100. You’re parched. You need water – lots of it.  But even in your thirst, you want that water to be manageable.
Which holds more water – a lake or a drinking glass?
Which will satisfy your thirst – a fire hose or a drinking fountain?
Whether it [...]

Multiple Projects & Threaded WIP: Using The Big Picture for Personal Kanban

The two rules of Personal Kanban: Limit WIP and visualize your work.
The truth about personal work: it’s messy.
So people with messy work have been asking me for:

ways to create multiple Personal Kanban(s) with unique workflows,
ways to manage the WIP of multiple projects in one kanban,
ways to manage projects with different collaborators, and
better ways to integrate [...]

A WIP Workout: Pomodoro and Personal Kanban

Pomodoro is the workout: Personal Kanban is the trainer.

GTD & Kanban: Similarities, Differences & Synergies Between The Two

In this article in the “GTD & Personal Kanban Series” we will explore the why? behind bringing GTD & Personal Kanban together.
What is Getting Things Done (GTD)?
GTD emerged as a highly effective and popular personal productivity approach in the early two thousands.  The approach consists of a five stage process, a workflow to guide that [...]

Sente and Gote in Personal Kanban

Sometimes your relationship to work is initiative based, other times it is reactive.  This is simply the nature of work. It is normal, and nothing – not Personal Kanban, not GTD – is going to change that.
In the game “Go” (“Weiqi” in Chinese) there are balanced strategic concepts for the natural ebbs and flows [...]