Limiting Holiday WIP with Personal Kanban

derek's pk 2

I’m asked on a regular basis how Agile or Lean practices can be applied during the holidays. Let’s face it, we have a limited amount of time and todo lists as long as our arms. Truth be told, people have limited success using the ever-growing todo list. You either forget your list at home, you take on too much at one time, or you forget why some of the items on your list just aren’t getting done.

Several years ago, I found the answer to my “get stuff done” problem and it is known as Personal Kanban. "Personal Kanban borrows from several Lean principles and practices. With just two simple acts – visualizing work and limiting work in progress – Personal Kanban gives us clarity over our work and our goals, and the unprecedented ability to deal with distractions, manage expectations, make better decisions, and ultimately find a healthy balance between our professional, personal, and social lives." – See more

Using Personal Kanban

I’ve leveraged Kanban for Agile Teams with great success. But I used a physical board, complete with sticky notes and painters tape. I also had a small board in my office, for personal stuff. Unfortunately, the more I traveled for work, the less physical boards worked.

I always seem to have my laptop or phone with me but I didn’t always have a wall to apply sticky notes. What is an Agile coach to do? Of course, in this digital age, there are several inexpensive solutions. I use LeanKit. It works on the web, phones, and tablets. Everything is synced all the time.

There are other solutions out there but this has worked for me (and my family) for quite a while.Here is the 50,000 foot view of how it works. On a surface that is in plain view all the time, visualize your workflow. It could be as simple as To Do, WIP (work in process), and Done.

Being this is personal, label the columns anything you want. Identify what you need to get done on cards. I like the title to be actionable (Call, Find, Do, Finish, Get…). I then color code the cards so I know if it is for work or not. Let’s say you are traveling during the holidays: “Pack clothes, book hotel room, reserve rental car, get boarding pass”. Use specific card colors and you’ll know at a glance if you forgot to do something.

Limit the stuff you work on at any given time. If you haven’t discovered it yet, multitasking is a big lie. You don’t get more done! You just keep really busy. Focus on getting stuff done, not starting more stuff. Don’t exceed WIP limits in a column. If there is no room for a card in a column without exceeding a self-imposed WIP limit, you do not pull a card into the column! This is important. By limiting what we agree to start, we will in turn finish a lot more.

Personal KanbanKanban Cards

Here are the cards for my “Holiday” Personal Kanban. My board doesn’t go away after January 1. It just focuses on other stuff. The yellow cards are going to drop off after New Years. I left them on the board so you could see how we can have three groups on a board and it still have clarity. Colors of cards are optional. I use every visual queue I can, including blocked and high priority indicators.

Red cards – Christmas and my birthday

Orange cards – LeadingAgile (work)

Yellow cards – ChanukahReady

I keep a backlog of stuff that isn’t “ready” for me to work on so I don’t even include those on my board. Even after having the highest priority cards appear at the top of the board, having too many cards on your board can paralyze you with choices. I only add cards to my ready column, if they have limited dependencies and are ready to complete within the next few weeks.

WIP (Work in Process)

One of the secrets of a pull system is you only work on things you actually have capacity to work on. When you have capacity in the next step of your workflow, you can pull work into that step. Limit the amount of stuff that you’re working on at any given time and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get more done.

Personally, I know that I can only deal with three things at a time before things start to get dropped. Know your personal limits and set them accordingly. If you’re working on something and you get blocked, don’t pull in more work.

Add a visual indicator that indicates the item is blocked. and continue pulling working through to done. Once you unblock the work, you can pull it the rest of the way through your system.

Focus

I’m a strange combination of a little OCD, a little ADHD, a lot of grit, and a lot of drive. I need a focus column. If I walk away from my desk, read an email, or get a cup of coffee, I can pretty much guaranteed to forget what I was working on. The focus column is my visual reminder of that one thing I’m trying to focus on right now. Notice the image of my personal kanban above that I’m trying to wrap up this blog post. Everything else can wait. I need to get this done!

Done

Ah yes, the done column. It is where all work needs to go. When I look at it, it makes me feel pretty darn good. We all feel busy but we commonly ask ourselves if we’ve actually gotten anything done. Well, this will show you. I recommend you reflect on what you’ve accomplished, feel good about it, and clear the column on a periodic basis. I do it either once a week or every other week.

Summary

I know this is a lot to put into a single blog post. But if you’re wishing for a more productive and balanced 2014, I would recommend you give this a try. It’s super simple to start and over time, if you’re persistent, you’ll see it will bring more clarity to your work and your goals.If you want to learn more about Personal Kanban, I would recommend you read Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. It’s a great read and an awesome gift!

Personal Kanban for a Well Oiled Machine

It is no small secret that you can’t do everything yourself. A machine’s gears only work well with all the parts of the machine when they are well oiled. I like to think that my family works in this way. Why? Because we use Personal Kanban to keep our well-oiled machine running.Here are a few ways my family has used Personal Kanban.When I am entertaining, making a special recipe or meal, getting ready for an event, or going on a trip, I will make a kitchen counter kanban.

Kitchen Counter Kanban

When cooking or baking, as I add an ingredient to my dish I will move the post-it into the appropriate column. Often when I am baking, I easily lose track of what I have added to the recipe, this helps me not to lose track.  I have also added tasks corresponding with the meal, such as setting the table, chilling the wine, etc.  When we are getting ready to travel I will put everything right on the counter that I need to do both for myself and my family in regards to packing, confirming reservations and acquiring tickets.

When using a Kanban that involves my whole family when setting it up I take this approach -  I ask each member of my family what color post-it's they want their tasks to be on. This is because I wanted each of them to be able to take one glance at the board and know exactly what each of us is doing at any given time, and I wanted them to be a color that makes them happy.  In the past I have liked to use the refrigerator, but the post-its sometimes wouldn’t stick to the door, so I decided on the cabinet that is most used, the dish cabinet. (No one can eat without going into this cabinet!)

Family Kanban on the kitchen cabinet

My husband chose the blue, my daughter the purple and I was the pink color.  I added the color post-it each of us chose with our names at the top above the waiting lanes.  This worked out great because I didn’t need to add names to the individual tasks, just what each task was, and we all knew immediately whose task it was. I even decided to add the day the task was going on, that way when I filled the waiting lane I could put every task up in chronological order, it made it easier to wade through.

Work flow on the family kanban

By Tuesday we were already in a good flow. What I love most about doing a family kanban is the fact that it involves everyone. While I was away my daughter and husband moved their tasks and kept each other in check. It’s like I have a safety net in place, it ensures that we are working together as a family (even if one of us is traveling). I’m not worried that my daughter won’t get to her activities on time. I know it’s getting accomplished.

Each time we use a new kanban in our home we learn and evolve as a family.  It adds to our family happiness factor.  In the past my daughter has even left her appreciation for our family Kanban right in the middle of the board.

Happiness on the family Kanban

I sleep better at night when I’m traveling knowing my family members have the visual reminders of important tasks that can’t get overlooked. This is also something that even though we are busy, going in all different directions, we work on together as a family all week long. Each kanban board is a direct reflection of our family, where we are all at together in our lives, and it brings us closer together.This post originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach Blog.

Completing Projects and Building Confidence with Kidzban

When I first started using Personal Kanban the one thing that excited me immediately was how much I wanted to use it with my daughter and at home with my family.And so my journey began.  At the time my daughter was 11 and continuing her religious education preparing to become confirmed.  There was so much she needed to get done before being able to complete the process and become confirmed that anytime we even mentioned the subject she became clearly overwhelmed.  That's when I decided to introduce her to Personal Kanban.  We set up a Confirmation kidzban.

kidzban to complete religious education projects

She was so excited to be able to visualize all her work that immediately she felt a sense of relief.  Once we got the tasks all up on the board she realized most of the tasks were actually waiting for actions from others.  "Oh that's not so much work." she said.  While it appears to be a lot of WIP, some of those tasks were actually waiting on action from a parent.  Her first use of a Kanban was a complete success. She has completed her religious education and did receive her confirmation.

When my daughter was a little older she was a competitive swimmer.  When you swim for a long time you hit many peaks and valleys.  One season my daughter was feeling incredibly defeated in the water.  Although practicing very hard day in and day out she was not seeing the results she wanted in the water.  She was losing confidence FAST!  So I thought about it and at the time I was experimenting with using Kanban for many projects so I thought why not? Let's see if a kanban can gain her some confidence back in the pool.   We sat down and talked about the times she wanted to achieve in the water, what her times were at that point, and what times she needed in order to qualify for the Junior Olympics.  We wrote her goal times on post-it's, and set up the Confidence kidzban.

Using Personal Kanban to build confidence

The Personal Kanban consisted of 3 major swim lanes, a BACKLOG of times, those being the times she was going into the meet with, her seed times.  The WIP lane was the goal times she set for each event.  The COMPLETED lane was called Goal Times Completed. When she had achieved the goals she set in the WIP lane they would be moved over. Having the times visualized on a board before we left for the meet was huge for her.  When she posted the times up on the board she began to see the differences and began to believe yes this is totally something I can achieve.   Not only because she hit some of her goals, but also because when we looked at the board after moving the first two events of the meet over to the completed swim lane, it felt tangible to her.  She could actually look at the board and see her goals being met.

moving goals over on the confidence kanban

After the second day of swimming we still had success, and even though she only completed one goal on her Personal Kanban board she was extremely proud of her work in the pool on this afternoon. The board has caused her to realize that confidence isn’t only about achieving those goals, it’s about seeing her work in progress. Along the way her confidence will get stronger and stronger with each goal that is met.  The main goal of this Personal Kanban was not just about achieving all new times, a very difficult task for any level competitive swimmer. It was also about giving a 12-year-old athlete her confidence back. According to her, even though all goals were not met and moved into the completed lane YET, they will be. Can you apply Personal Kanban to help confidence?  Ask my 12 year old and she will tell you, yes you can.

This is an updated post that originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach blog.

Preschool + Personal Kanban = Kidzban Success

After teaching in the 4 & 5-year-old student preschool class for many years, the last year I taught I became a teacher in the 3-year-old student classroom.  While excited, I knew it would be a challenge when setting up my classroom because many of these students would not know how to read or would have a very limited sight word knowledge.  The classroom would have to be highly visual. I knew I wanted to use Kanban in the classroom, my challenge was how I was going to use it.

Classroom kanban

The first month of school I wanted to teach my students about being aware of the world around them and the rules of safety when outside playing.  So we focused a bit on stoplight safety.  They knew what a stoplight was but had no idea about its function and what it meant for them when crossing a street with a caregiver.  We first learned about the three colors and what each color stood for.  Then to re-enforce what those colors meant they were each given a colored circle and asked to place them in the correct place on the stoplight  and then tell the other students what that color meant- green safe to go, yellow slow down, proceed with caution, and red, stop.  When we were sure they were confident and  knew all three they then were asked to move their circles to the completed lane.  They had fun watching each other move their circles and if a student was struggling the other students would collaborate with that particular student to help them put their circle in the correct spot.  I heard from quite a few parents, that their child let them know when they went through a yellow light too fast or even through a red light! This safety stoplight kidzban was a big success.

Preschool classroom helper kanban

One thing that I have found after 10+ years of teaching preschoolers is that they absolutely love to help you out in the classroom.  So I knew from the point when I was assigned this class one of the Personal Kanbans I would design would involve classroom tasks.  I wanted to design something that represented fun, so I decided on ‘flying a kite.’Here’s how this works: each student has a bow on the tail of the kite.  Every day we chose the next name on the tail and that person gets to ‘fly the kite’ and essentially is the classroom leader for that particular day.  The kite is divided into four sections, each section has a classroom task: flag holder, dressing the classroom weather bear, being the line leader, and ringing the clean-up bell.  The student’s bow moves around to all four tasks as they need to be completed. The student who is the kite flyer for the day also wears a badge, that goes home with them at the end of the day.

• Upon entering the room most students will walk over to check out the kite to see who is going to be the leader each day in our class.  They are learning not only to recognize their name but the names of their classmates.

• They have learned their tasks, if I happen to get sidetracked in the classroom doing another task students will come up and ask me, “Is it time for Judy to dress the weather bear yet?”  A lot of times the student who asks me that question isn’t even the one to be the student leader for that particular day.

• Group participation, when the student is dressing the weather bear, many other students come over to participate and offer help.  This aids in learning to get along in group situations.

• This is not a traditional kanban board, however it works just like a traditional kanban, there is a ready lane-the tail with the bows, a work in progress lane-the kite sectioned into four tasks, and completed lane-the bows placed under the words I flew the kite today.

• This is giving my students the visual of their tasks, the ability to see themselves move around the classroom completing these tasks and the huge confidence of seeing their tasks completed.

• The badge that they get to wear when they are the kite flyer-class leader for the day makes them feel important. Upon wearing it home it breeds conversations about what tasks they had to complete.

• Every student knows they will get a turn, and they are excited when they see where their bow is placed on the tail and when their turn will be coming up.

• It helped to get the students into the ‘groove’ of our classroom and what would be happening during their day. This is many of my students first experience in a structured classroom, and it can be very scary and intimidating the first few weeks. This helped greatly ease their minds and make the experience a positive one.

I found that my students were having a difficult time grasping the Thanksgiving holiday, so I decided that we would design a Thanksgiving Personal Kanban together in class during our circle time.

Teaching Thanksgiving Kanban

We set up the pilgrims traveling to the United States first, talked about how they would arrive then we talked about what they would need to learn to survive with the Native Americans, how they would grow food, prepare the food, etc.  Then we discussed how their working together made them successful and happy, which brought us to celebrating Thanksgiving.  By doing this kidzban together they learned more from the visual then by me just talking or reading from a book.  They got to place the pictures on the board, and we all collaborated on why and how and what we thought they did next.  The students loved working on this board together.  Now they know that Thanksgiving is about more than just eating turkey.

My biggest hope is that I begin to see more and more teachers and educators using Personal Kanban in the their classroom.  I firmly believe from pre-k through college this can be a class game changer and great collaboration tool across the board in every subject.This is an updated post that originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach Blog.

The ABC's of Personal Kanban in the Classroom

Personal Kanban in the classroom is one area that I am highly passionate about.  Why? I have seen it in action, first-hand in the preschool classroom.  As a teacher it is exciting when your students are excited about learning.The first Personal Kanban we introduced at preschool was an ABC's Kanban.  We used this for 26 weeks, each week introducing a new letter for the students to learn.

Preschool ABC's Kanban

 When we began on our evolving classroom journey we had just a few simple goals:

• We wanted to the classroom Personal Kanban to easily understood by parents and the teachers alike.

• We wanted the students to excel at what had traditionally been a very unappealing and difficult part of the preschool classroom activity-learning to write the letters. We wanted to excite the children about learning not think of it as a chore.

Using this Kanban with our students we learned that theexcitement from the children grew every week with each letter they completed on their task card. Students were excited to share their work with other children in the classroom.  Students wanted to collaborate on the chalkboard writing their letters, teaching other studentshow to write letters. The students were waiting at the board before their name is called to come over with their task card, in anticipation of receiving a sticker reward for a job well done.  We had a completely engaged classroom environment.We had many, many retrospective talks about the board, we had more Kaizen moments than I can list. It was like standing back watching a puzzle magically come together piece by piece every week.Week after week students began going above and beyond, even turning their task cards over to more work!

Preschool alphabet learning task cards

We realized we didn't have to write the students names on the cards anymore because they began to write their names on their own on the cards.

Examples of student written names ABC's Kanban

We were amazed by our ABC's Kanban and how much the students embraced their learning experience. When we were wrapping up our parent-teacher conferences, when speaking with the parents I heard the following statements, “My child loved working on her task card it made her feel important.”“To have all the cards for my child to be able to look back and see all the letters he learned, I wasn’t just telling him, I was showing him, he was able to see all he’s learned.” And finally one parent remarked to me “He was so excited to get into class to show you his card, week after week his excitement grew, he’s been so proud of his work.” The 4 & 5 year old preschool class continues to use this ABC's Kanban successfully.

This an updated post that originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach blog.