It’s hard to limit your work-in-progress when your boss count exceeds your WIP limit.If you have a WIP Limit of 3 and 12 bosses, you may as well have one card permanently in your Personal Kanban that says, “Negotiate with Bosses”.That sounds funny, but it is true. Your bosses will always require explanations about why you are working on tasks that are unrelated to their work.Tonianne and I play a game with people regularly called “Count The Bosses.” The rules are simple…. you count your bosses.If you need more than a few fingers to count them, you know that part of your job is not only satisfying their demands, but also choosing which one to be attentive to at any given point-in-time.Your bosses are people who directly give you work. In a few days, we’ll have a post #7 which deals with understanding your customers. For today, however, we simply want a number … how many people are giving you work?Then ask these questions:

Do these people consult with each other before giving me work?
Do I feel guilty when I’m working for one when another has needs?
Am I punished for doing work for one boss over another?
Am I in the middle of their disputes?
Will they let me complete tasks before giving me another?
Do they allow me to complete my work in a way that works for me, rather than working in ways they think I should?

What we would like is have answers that give them the right to give us work, but give us the ability to complete that work in the best way we see fit.If your answers are not in this direction, it is useful to show on a Personal Kanban what is really happening. Then discuss this with them around the board. Do not just go talk to them, because neither of you will have anything physical to talk about. The goal here is to use the board as a mediator. We want the board to reveal how there is too much work-in-progress and that the work load itself is hampering your ability to complete things on time.Have your bosses watch this strangely silent YouTube Video. Let them know you, too, have an optimal WIP limit.

Limit Your WIP

"Yes, well that's the fallacy of work / life balance, isn't it? I mean...it's all life.”~ Lean Coffee participant, Sydney June 2011

The Fallacy of Work / Life Balance – Work life balance is more than personal and it is more than a choice. Whether we are employers or employees, we need to recognize and respect that “work” is part of life, not some opposing force we balance against life. Studies show that a strong collaborative corporate culture helps organizations weather the current economic downturn better. Pre-Lean Campconversations have drawn focus on this fallacy and toward respect in the workplace.Work / Life Balance. It's one of those concepts that just simply falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. At what point at work do we cease to be alive?I've just come off two weeks of working / living with AMP, a large financial services firm based in Sydney, Australia. This is a conservative company that is examining just what "conservative" actually means. The conclusions people were coming to were very exciting for me.Several people agreed that people at AMP bifurcated their lives. They would come to work, focus on work, and then leave at the end of the work day to return to their homes and presumably to their “lives.” Everyone agreed that this scenario was true…for other people. But not for themselves.As we spoke they realized that they were holding back at the office, because they assumed their co-workers were bifurcating their lives – but in reality very few people actually did so. Everyone was wanting work / life … balance?No.They like their work. They like their lives. There was no division. There was no opposing weight to balance.What they wanted was their home life to respect their work life and vice versa. They wanted these two elements of their lives to stop being a zero sum game. Some days home life happened during working hours. Some days it was the other way around.Some days …? Or maybe all days.Definitely all days.Life happens during life hours.Work / Life Balance is a fallacy. It's all living. Right now, you are living. Wherever you are reading this, you are living. And everywhere you go today, you'll be living there, too.Now, I ask you. In this moment, what is the thing of highest value you could be doing?Think about it.Then do it.Image by Tonianne DeMaria Barry.