All Entries in the "Primers" Category
The Retrospective Column
When we make our work and our process explicit, and we do retrospectives, it makes sense to have a retrospective column in our Personal Kanban. The thought here is fairly simple: at the beginning of each day move tasks from Complete into Retrospective. Then, at the end of the week (or whenever you wish) take [...]
The Priority Filter: A Tutorial
Prioritization is often even more difficult and daunting as the tasks that confront you. A priority filter in your Personal Kanban helps you determine what tasks are ready in your queue, and the order of importance they should assume. Click on the video below for a quick priority filter tutorial.
Note: This video is best viewed [...]
Urgent and Important: Incorporating your existing tools into Personal Kanban
We’ve devised Personal Kanban to adapt to any system you might currently use (unless of course your preferred system is utter chaos). The only two rules are visualize your work and limit work-in-progress (WIP). PK’s main goal is to get you to write things down and begin to watch how and what you complete.
Last week, [...]
Boosting Productivity and Learning with Spikes
Is there something you don’t know?
Almost everyday it seems we are faced with having to learn something new. Some of those things are trivial and easy to accomplish, while others are important and a more than a little daunting to master.
There are some easy steps to make learning less overwhelming.
On the Lean Agile Machine blog, [...]
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. [...]
Save the Date! Jim Benson Featured Guest on Yi-Tan Call
Save the date! Monday, January 4th at 10:30 PST/1:30 PM EST for the weekly 40-minute Yi-Tan Tech Community call hosted by Jerry Michalski and Pip Coburn.
The topic?
Personal Kanban, of course!
Call, listen, and chat with Jim Benson (@ourfounder on Twitter) as he discusses:
Why we stress over the tasks we are confronted with;
What we can learn from [...]
Tools Talk: Julia Child Understood the Nature of Work
While expertise, good humor, humanity, and care are words that immediately come to mind when describing Julia Child, the iconic chef personified something else – she understood the nature of her work. She recognized the role it played, the value it brought, the actions involved in creating it, and the opportunity costs in choosing certain [...]
Towards a Leaner Santa: Holiday “Do” Date-ban
Chalk it up to a decade with the nuns and my time as a Girl Scout (always be prepared!), but I obsess over details. Having my “stuff” in one bag or my proverbial ducks in a row is how I delude myself into thinking I can make sense of my universe. Still, I spend many [...]
WIP can be Imposed
Please don’t feel bad if you find you’ve lost control of your WIP.
The two rules of Personal Kanban:
1. Visualize Your Work
2. Limit WIP
With a little practice, #1 becomes easy…second nature, even.
Number 2 is, well, pretty much a bitch to master.
It is better stated as a goal. On a good workday, when things are flowing, we [...]
InfoPak 3 – Personal Kanban Design Patterns: Inspiration to Discover Your Flow
Info Pak3 Personal Kanban Design Patterns
View more documents from Jim Benson.
Modus Cooperandi is pleased to announce the release of its third Personal Kanban InfoPak. In Personal Kanban Design Patterns: Inspiration to Discover Your Flow we present a series of patterns for individuals as well as for small “teams.” Among the topics discussed: approaches tailored to [...]
