From Daunting to Done: Completing a Dissertation with Personal Kanban

I have never completed anything to date that was more complex, daunting, or onerous than completing my dissertation. From the first day of my doctoral program, I knew that the only way I could complete this monumental task was to break it down into small, manageable pieces of work, and then visualize and track that work over nearly three years.

I was familiar with LeanKit when I started my program as I had used it personally and professionally to manage my life thanks to PersonalKanban. Isn’t it funny that once you buy into a system, everything you see is in context of the system? Just thinking about my dissertation plan triggered a visualization in my brain of cards on a kanban board.

The first thing that any academic will tell you about this process is that it consumes your life. You may not be actively doing research or have your hands on the keyboard, but you are thinking about it constantly. The reason why I am telling you something that seems obvious is because it’s critical to illustrate how I constructed my board to manage the process.

Let’s talk about my board—it manages my life and has evolved over time. I have work related tasks and personal tasks in separate Ready/Today columns, and then a Doing column that shows my WIP. I have a WIP limit of 5. I have a Stuck/Critical column, a Waiting For column, and then the typical Done columns.

Branden's LeanKit Kanban Board

When I thought about breaking down my dissertation into manageable chunks, I used LeanKit’s Task feature. I had one card called Dissertation that stayed in my Doing column, meaning that my WIP limit for the last few years was actually 4 (not 5) as my ever-present dissertation consumed one of those spots. Then I built a task board with Ready, Doing (WIP limit of 3), and Done lanes that contained all of the subtasks. There were a total of 22 major work products that needed to be managed. The actual number of tasks associated with my dissertation was significantly higher than that, but these were the major projects that needed multi day/week management.

Breakdown of Dissertation Tasks in LeanKit

My dissertation followed the standard 5 chapter model (Intro, Lit Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion), with the second chapter was treated like a collection of 12 essays of 3-10 pages each in length. Then there are processes like Scientific Merit Review and the Internal Review Board that represented multi-week processes that had to be managed. I hired an editor to review my early work to make sure I was on progress. After committee review, you have to defend your dissertation which requires an oral presentation and Q/A by your committee. See what I mean by daunting?

Each of these items had a card that I moved from the task board’s Ready column, to Doing, to Done. After my last task card (return from Format/Editing and Publication Submission) was done, I moved the parent card from Doing to Done. You can’t imagine a more satisfying feeling than moving a card that you’ve been staring at for almost three years out of the WIP area of your board.LeanKit helped me keep my life sane throughout this long academic journey, and it can be used to help you as well. I would often build cards for projects, papers, or other deliverables too to make sure I was always on top of my time. Using LeanKit as a task management system can help you translate task management skills into your post-academic careers as well by bringing Lean techniques to your professional career.

Kidzban Around the Web #3

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Around the web people are sharing their experiences with Kidzban.  This is the third post in the series – Kidzban Around the Web.Maritza van den Heuvel writes from her Becoming an Agile Family Blog. She has written many posts on her experiences with both kidzban and Personal Kanban.  In her All Aboard post she describes "that there is no 'one size fits all' approach."She has used a kidzban right from her dining table.  She states "The most visible item in our open plan living area is the dining table."She has also used the fridge.  Maritza mentioned in her post "By the next weekend, I’d realised that the object which is most central to our lives is in fact the kitchen fridge. It’s the first thing you see as you walk into the kitchen, and all of us open it at least once in the morning, afternoon and evening. It also came with a ready-made metal surface and a myriad of magnets we could use for our cards."Maritza loves the fridge because "The further beauty of the fridge, is that it has natural boundaries that separate the Backlog (below the line) and Work In Progress (above the line). Work again moves across from the left (Next Up) to the middle (Doing) and eventually to the right (Done)."She even has a portable Kanban that she made out of a folder and pasted a poster board to. "So far, the mobile board has been my biggest breakthrough in personal productivity using Personal Kanban."Maritza has created truly innovative kidzbans with her family.  Her Teaching Kids Timekeeping with Kanban is one example.  She states "I had been toying with the idea of a non-linear kanban for over a year."  Her kids loved Harry Potter and "were already familiar with the concept of a clock that 'shows where you are' made the format of the clock a no-brainer."

Weasley Kidzban Clock

Maritza mentions how easy it was to involve her children in creating the kidzban while making it fun. "All you have to do is look around at what you have and use it creatively while involving the kids throughout. We made the clock in an afternoon, with an extra day for the choosing and printing of the photos."  The face was created by using the previous year's cardboard calendar.  Her kids colored the segments, and she wrote the activity names on poster board and her kids cut them out.  They are removable so that they can change easily if activities change or the time changes for activities and her kids chose their own photos to use on the arms of the clock.After using the clock for around a month Maritza concluded, "The kids are certainly having a lot of fun with it so far."  They placed the kanban "strategically" in a highly visual place - at the bottom of their stairs.  "....they have to pass it every time they go up or down. We now also have a new mantra to Check and Change....(the Weasley Clock)."  She also stated her kids are starting to form the habit of changing positions of their avatars and they are enjoying comparing each other's status.Be sure to stop by Maritza's Becoming an Agile Family Blog to read the All Aboard post and Teaching Kids Timekeeping with Kanban post in their entirety. Maritza is also one of the authors of the book Beyond Agile: Tales of Continuous Improvement.Photo 1: CreditPhoto 2: CreditThis is the third post in the series - Kidzban Around the Web. You can read the first post here and the second post here.

Personal Kanban at NYC's Agile Learning Center

The Agile Learning Center at Manhattan Free School is designed to put young people in the driver’s seat of their learning and living – giving them the same opportunity and responsibility that we have as adults – to create their own lives.Each morning, we begin with a standup meeting. Everyone takes a turn stating their intentions for the day and making requests for any support they may need. At the end of the day, we come back for another standup meeting to reflect. Did we fulfill our intentions? If so, how? If not – why? What might we do differently tomorrow based on our awareness of today?This daily cycle of creation and reflection produces a powerful feedback loop, providing us clear information about the choices we make and the results of those choices. Between the bookends of this daily cycle, kanban boards are used to support mindfulness in our decision-making process.After morning standup, we use kanban boards to make our intentions visible. Speaking intentions is a start, but making them visible in physical space takes our awareness and commitment to the next level. Now we have a self-created roadmap for what’s possible.

A student kanban

From there, students practice prioritizing by surveying the possibilities for their day and moving things into READY or “Get Set”. What do I really want to do today? Who could I work or play with? What will nurture my body, mind, and spirit? A nine year-old may not be using these words or asking these specific questions, but the kanban process has them considering all of these factors in their own way.Next, we get to experience the power of making what’s possible a reality by pulling the selected intention into DOING or “Go”. ACTION! Deep engagement ensues. When we take the time to make conscious choices, we tend to be more focused, present, and committed to our actions, because we are taking ownership over the whole process.

Finish line on the student Kanban

When an intention is fulfilled, a task completed, or a curiosity explored, we come back to move the story across the finish line. Crossing the finish line does not mean that the story is over and done with. However, it does mark what we have created, and gives us the opportunity to reflect, assess, and constantly improve.

Wall of student kanbans

The kanban board is an extremely effective tool for breaking through our automatic thinking – informing ourselves of the past, visualizing the future, and bringing our attention to the present.Agile Learning Centers is an open-sourced education model for the 21st Century. Learn more about the very first Agile Learning Center at AgileLearn.org

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.