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,

  1. ways to manage the WIP of multiple projects in one kanban,

  2. ways to manage projects with different collaborators, and

  3. better ways to integrate a calendar.

To be sure, these are not easy requests to satisfy.For all of my projects, I have been using Agile Zen as my primary Personal Kanban tool. I have found it to be the best designed, easiest to use, and most powerful online tool available. It likewise gives me the statistics I need to help me understand the "way" that I work, which ultimately helps me to make better informed decisions.Unfortunately however, it doesn’t lend itself to the aforementioned demands, because those demands break some pretty fundamental laws of Lean.  Such demands ask us to:

• abandon a central workflow (by integrating multiple workflows),

• acknowledge a time-box constraint (by introducing a calendar), and

• decouple WIP from a team and relegate it to the individual.

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So in an attempt to manage multiple projects, I've begun to use  The Big Picture. It isn’t perfect, but with its unique interface this free tool gets us a little closer to handling "the messy" than any other online tool I've come across.

Multiple Projects

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Pictured to the right is the main page from my Big Picture. We see that I have four simultaneous projects that are contributing to my WIP: Instant Karma, Modus, Music, and Personal.Each of these projects has its own workflow, set of collaborators, and type of demands. If we double click on one of the balls we get to see the kanban for that particular project.In this first example, we see that music can go from:idea --> in progress --> mix down --> review --> publicationTasks might also have subtasks or elements to be satisfied.  For example, the song “Presence of Mind” is in review and is awaiting feedback from John, Tonianne, and Chris.For the Instant Karma workflow, we see something very different -  a totally different workflow and totally different types of tasks.This system is inherently flexible.

Multiple WIP and Calendar Integration

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This system manages WIP by actually moving current WIP into the calendar.In the image to the right, I’m dragging a task from one of the task lists to the calendar in the upper right corner.  This brings up the calendar screen where you can begin to manage your day – your messy day filled with multiple tasks from multiple projects with different workflows and different teams.Color coordinated by the various projects, the day now is filled with tasks.  This is your WIP.  You can move it from day to day until it is complete. When it is complete, you simply check the tick box.You can rearrange them. The time really isn’t important but rather, it’s the activities during the day which are vital.  This is your shared WIP column.At the beginning of the next work day, you can revisit each of the projects, pull the appropriate tasks from one stage to the next, and then select the WIP for that day.

Multiple Users

The Big Picture allows you to share individual projects with other users. They can add tasks, complete them, and change the workflow.This means that people see only the tasks you want them to see, and can work tightly with their teams.

What This is Missing (Blessing and Curse)

This is missing performance metrics, detailed backlog tracking, user management, and firm definitions of what is a task, what is a project, and what is a point in your workflow.  The Big Picture offers almost no firm definitions, it simply allows you to create an arbitrary container and place things inside it.What this means is that it won’t give you some of the high-end features you want – but it also means that this simple system can help visualize some of the most complicated workflows.  Additionally, it means you need nearly zero time to set up your management system, and that you can be part of a plethora of projects and still manage them coherently with the other people participating.

What This Has

In addition to its flexibility, this system also has a completely unique interface. It’s both colorful and functional, making the user experience enjoyable. I believe this is an excellent launching pad for experimentation and innovation.Will it replace Agile Zen for me personally? No. I need the metrics, the serious database, and the superlative UI design that Agile Zen gives me.Can I see myself using The Big Picture for quick projects or projects with weird workflows, like recursive or multi-variant workflows?  Absolutely. The utter free-form of The Big Picture makes it too attractive an alternative when the bizarre raises its head.

Save the Date...for a Tweet-a-ban!

When: November 17, 2009Where: TwitterHashtag: #pkflowSave the date because Modus Cooperandi is hosting a "Tweet-a-ban." Whether you're a Personal Kanban practitioner or just have an interest in improving your  productivity, join in on the asynchronous, 24 hour long global conversation. For details click here.

InfoPak 2 - Personal Kanban 101: Achieving Focus & Clarity with Your First Personal Kanban

Personal Kanban 101

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Jim Benson

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Modus Cooperandi is pleased to announce the release of its second Personal Kanban InfoPak. InPersonal Kanban 101: Achieving Focus & Clarity with Your First Personal Kanban we discuss the essentials for getting your board started. Topics addressed include how to establish value stream, backlog and WIP, and why there are only two hard rules to implementing this productivity tool.As always, please feel free to download, distribute, comment and let us know what you think.

GTD & Kanban: Managing The Relationship Between Someday/Maybe & Active Projects

Throw out the schedule

In my previous post, "GTD & Kanban: Similarities, Differences & Synergies Between The Two"in this series,I talked about using Kanban for managing the flow of work, rather than having any number of projects and someday/maybe items in separate lists which are reviewed every week to a month.  In this post I will describe how using flow to manage GTD projects and someday/maybe lists can be beneficial.  In a future post I'll describe how this also translates into flowing actions in a context, such as the work place, and limiting the work in progress (WIP) of these actions.Again, for the basics of GTD I recommend the material linked from Wikipedia.  The basics of Personal Kanban can be found on this very site.

What are "Someday/Maybe" lists and Projects?

Getting things Done (GTD) has a number of horizons above any given action: Projects, Goals, Focus, Vision & Purpose.  These are aimed at providing yourself goals to aim for and to test your choice of actions against, so that you aren't just "doing", but are actually moving toward a goal, and these goals join up to achieving larger objectives in life.In GTD, anything you wish to achieve that has more than one specific  action is considered a project.  For example, even arranging a meal out at a restraunt could be considered a project as you will have to go through actions similar to: who to invite, confirm who is available, when to go, where to go, book a table, confirm booking with invitees and go.  The reason why this definition works is, actions could be in any number of places in your personal productivity system, be it a calendar or a list, and when they are done there needs to be a reminder in your system that acts as a touchstone so that you can ensure a next action is available to move forward towards an envisaged successful outcome.Any objective that requires action, yet does not make sense to undertake as-at-now, yet you feel this is something you would like to do in the future is considered a candidate for the "someday/maybe" list.  Someday/maybe is reviewed at regular intervals to see if an item needs pulling into the current project list, or, if only one action is required, a contextual action list or placed on a calendar.  Why have a someday/maybe list?  Someday/maybe lists assist in clearing your head by placing all these wishes and thoughts into a trusted and regularly reviewed system.

Managing Someday/Maybe & Projects by using a Personal Kanban

Rather than have multiple flat lists, one for projects and one for someday/maybe with no interaction between them other than once a week if not longer, lets use a Kanban to represent both!  The example bellow includes prioritisation, a step for the initial brainstorm of what success looks like and what actions may be required, the doing part (working), and the done part.  All with WIP limits for focus.

Lets do a quick illustration:

1. You get a new project at work called "Project A" that is going to require several actions, so you place it on the backlog as you have plenty to do already.  The backlog acts as your someday/maybe list.

2. A space becomes available on your "Should" lane, which prompts you to look at your backlog for possible projects to start prioritising, you assess the items against your current Goals at work, and select Project A.

3. Over time, Project A moves from "Should" to "Ready", and before undertaking the work, to the elaboration lane for envisaging a successful outcome and working back to the next steps from where you are.

4. Once Project A moves to the "Working" lane, you place the next action discovered as part of elaborating into the appropriate context list or date on the calendar.

5. Actions get performed overtime, and eventually the successful outcome is achieved and Project A is placed in the "Project Goal Achieved!" lane.

Clearly, due to the variance in size of knowledge work or personal projects it's difficult to set a limit on "working", so I suggest you experiment with this number, and try to keep it as low as possible for focus.Going back to the purpose of someday/maybe, it is possible you have single discreet actions on your backlog now, so it is worth moving those items to an appropriate context list or calendar entry when the time comes that you wish to do something about them.  Personally, most of my Someday/Maybe items were and are projects, so I don't mind the backlog being closely associated to projects.