Work in Process - WIP

What is 'Work In Process - WIP'

Work in process, also known as WIP, refers to activities that have entered the completion process but are not yet outcomes. Work in progress (WIP) refers to all materials and partly finished products that are at various stages of the production process. WIP excludes inventory of time or materials at the start of the completion cycle and finished products inventory at the end of the production cycle.  That means you don't count the things you have not started or have not finished.

Work in Process vs Progress

I see the difference between process and progress as being very small but I want to make a distinction.  I see progress being anchored to physical goods at different stages of completeness on an assembly line and process being completion of any activity as part of a goal or outcome.  Your process could be as simple as To-do and Done.  If you are multi-tasking and have 5 things started all at the same time, you have a WIP of 5.

Personal Agility Tip

One of the secrets of managing your work in process is to only start work on things you actually have capacity to work on. When you have capacity, you can pull work into your "queue". Rather than accepting and starting every task that comes your way, limit the amount of stuff that you’re working on at any given time.  Focus less on starting things in your queue and more on finishing them, and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get more done.

Personally, I know that I can only deal with three activities 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 just pull in more work. Add a visual indicator that shows the item is blocked and continue pulling working to done. Once you unblock work, you can pull it the rest of the way through your system to done.

Have questions?  Ask me how I do it!

My Personal Kanban submission for Agile 2014

I am happy to announce I submitted a workshop titled  "At home and work, how to get more stuff done. An introduction to Personal Kanban".  After asking people to provide comments, I was informed that the submission wasn't viewable. It looks like you need to be logged in. Go figure.

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Submitted: Tue, 2014-01-14 01:40 Updated: Tue, 2014-01-14 01:43

Presenter: Derek Huether

Track: Learning Session Type: Workshop Audience Level: Learning

Room Setup: Rounds Duration: 75 minutes

Keywords: Learning, Process, kanban, flow, personal, WIP, Personal_Agility, process improvement

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Abstract:

With a world of constant distraction, it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to get stuff done, regardless if it’s on a personal or organizational level. At some point, we’ve been sold the lie that multitasking is great and maximum utilization is even better. If we all drank the Kool-Aid, why are we doing more and getting less done? If there were a relatively simple way for you to get more stuff done, wouldn’t you want to know what it was? If there were a way for you to measure and improve your processes over time, wouldn’t you want to know how to do that as well? When getting stuff done is a primary measure for success, we need to introduce people to concepts that are simple but can be leveraged at scale.

In this session, participants will be introduced to the principles of Lean and the application of Kanban to visualize their personal work, limit distraction and waste, and get stuff done. I’ll cover the core concepts outlined in Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry's book, Personal Kanban, to get you started. I’ll talk about how Kanban can be applied to everyday work and why you should do it.

Through my years of struggling with ADD/ADHD and my years of management, leadership, and coaching, I have learned and applied Personal Kanban techniques in my everyday life and Lean Kanban at both government and private organizations. This is your opportunity to experience what I am like after a few cups of coffee and for you to learn a few simple strategies that you can start using before you even leave Agile 2014. This workshop can help you map your work and navigate your life.

Information for Review Team:

My first blog post about my Personal Kanban story happened in August of 2009. Since that time, I have evangelized the use of Personal Kanban for people who had tried everything from To-Do lists to Franklin Covey Planners to GTD, with little or no success. It gives me a profound amount of joy sharing this information to people ranging from parents who struggle to get their kids to bed to CEOs trying to make sense of a portfolio backlog. This workshop will begin with me telling me story and my challenges of staying focused and getting stuff done. It will conclude with people realizing how easy it is to grasp the basic concepts behind Personal Kanban, benefit from them, and then tell others.

Logistics:

Each table will have 3 sheets of 25 x 30" easel pad paper with pre-designed Kanban boards, a stack of index cards with different (effort) activities listed and predetermined values. (Writing what teams will be asked to do would spoil the surprise but I promise we’ll have some fun) I will explain to everyone how a Personal Kanban works. Each 10-minute practice session is designed to bring to light the daily struggles we may have in completing our work. After each session I will ask how the room would approach their work differently. The expectation is that more work will get done during practice session two and then even more during practice session three, based on what the attendees will learn in the previous sessions and improving their processes.

Agenda:

• Introduction and Overview [10 minutes] • Core Concepts [10 minutes] [20 minutes elapsed] What is the history of Kanban? What’s the difference between Kanban and Personal Kanban, what makes up a Kanban board, how do we design a Personal Kanban board, what is WIP, what is flow? • Practice [10 minutes] [30 minutes elapsed] Round 1 / Our first board • Retrospective [5 minutes] [35 minutes elapsed] What worked and what didn’t? • Practice [10 minutes] [45 minutes elapsed] Round 2 / Our second board design • Retrospective [5 minutes] [50 minutes elapsed] What worked and what didn’t? • Practice [10 minutes] [60 minutes elapsed] Round 3 / Our third board design • Retrospective [5 minutes] [65 minutes elapsed] What worked and what didn’t? • Conclusion and Questions [10 minutes] [75 minutes elapsed] What did you learn? What were you surprised by? What other questions do you have?

Background Info:

• I have been successfully leveraging Kanban on an organizational level since 2008 and evangelizing Personal Kanban since August 2009. • Jim and Tonniane’s book, which provides the basis of this session, is widely available. Here is a slide deck on the basics of Personal Kanban: http://www.slideshare.net/ourfounder/personal-kanban-101

Prerequisite Knowledge:

None

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand key definitions and terms of Lean and Kanban
• Understand how to apply Kanban to your personal and professional life
• Understand how you can measure and improve your processes

Presentation History:

I have been presenting since 2011, when I appeared at the Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference. I’ve since been a guest at the Work Management Summit in 2011, and then presented at AgileDC in 2011, and 5 Project Management Institute events, including the Project Management Symposium 2012 (Washington DC), PMI Global Congress 2012, PMI Puerto Rico Simposio Anual 2012, Project Management Symposium 2013 (Washington DC), and most recently PMI SoMD Chapter 2013.

A few of my public sessions are available on Slideshare

Looking for Lean in Inefficient Processes

This morning, I wrote a physical check and placed it into a physical envelope. I hand-wrote the addresses on the envelope and even put a physical stamp on it.  I will mail it, when I take my semiweekly trip to the mailbox.  This is the first time I can remember doing this in a few years.  The party recieving my payment is forcing me to follow this inefficient business process of mailing a physical payment to them.  All I can think is how this used to be the norm and now how ridiculously inefficient it appears. When objectively judging the efficiency of this process, I started by first measuring two things, the Work-in-Process (WIP) and the Average Completion Rate (ACR).

Little's Law

This law provides an equation for relating Lead Time, Work-in-Process (WIP) and Average Completion Rate (ACR) to any process. The law states: Lead Time = WIP (units) / ACR (units per time period).  The idea is to have the lowest lead time as possible.  Lower lead times means less waste.

Am I the only geek out there who does this?  Where do you see inefficient processes that could benefit from a more lean approach?

Theme Park Pull System

If you've been to a theme park like Disney World's Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios, you will quickly notice the lines.  Depending on the time of year (or day) the line to a ride or attraction could be anywhere from nonexistent to 90+ minutes long.  As you approach an entrance, you'll see a line marked on the grounds and a sign that reads "N minutes from this point". You want the sign to read 5 minutes.  That's the time it takes, with no wait line, to get to the actual attraction.  What you don't see from the line on the ground is the maze of lines snaking their way through the building.  If the volume of people is low, everything except the direct line to the attraction is roped off.  The more the people, the more "side" lines are open.  The line outside the attractions are deceasing.  The real delays start after you cross that line marked on the ground and are committed. I noticed that attractions usually lasted less than 5 minutes and people were divided into groups, just prior to onboarding some kind of transportation.  The transportation ran at a consistent rate of speed.  All these factors included, Disney World has to know the maximum throughput of a ride, before the line starts to back up. Why do you ask?  Well, to keep the customer happy by keeping them moving, of course.

When I saw all of this happening, I thought it was an excellent example of a pull system.  We went on a ride called "Star Tours".  The vehicle capacity was 40 people and the ride duration was 4:30 minutes.  We noticed the sign said 90 minutes from this point.  Can you imagine doing that with a 5-year-old?

Star Tours Capacity=40 people per load Lead Time=90:00 minutes Actual Duration=4:30 minutes

So, what does Disney do to help resolve the issue?  They call it the Fast Pass.  Yes, the golden ticket.  When you see the line at its worst, go up to a kiosk and get a Fast Pass.  It will tell you to return to the ride at a designated time.  In exchange for doing that, it will allow you to go to the head of the line, when that time comes.  I am assuming they are having you return at a predicted time of day in which the line will be shorter.  Regardless, it eliminated the bottleneck for us.  Whenever we saw a hellish line, we got a Fast Pass and came back later in the day.

To prevent the Fast Pass people from completely stopping the line, it appeared a certain percentage of seats per load were allocated for Fast Pass ticket holders.

I think this Fast Pass option may also work with non-theme park customers.  Let's say you are working on an application development project.  After you have an optimum cycle time, if you reserve a little capacity, you could potentially negotiate with a stakeholder to postpone an activity to a date or time in which you know the workload will be less.  I'm not saying you are postponing adding the work to your backlog.  It's still there.  But, you could agree to make it a lower priority until more of the backlog gets completed.  This could keep the rest of the work moving at an optimum pace and keep the customer happy.

Drawing by Pictofigo

I Got a Feeling

I was sitting at my desk when this song by the Black Eyed Peas called "I got a feeling" came on Pandora.  My son rushed over yelling to turn it up. I attribute turning up the volume to the resulting earworm that has lasted the last few days.  There could be worse things in the world.  Each time I hear it, I think of the flash mob that danced in Chicago for Oprah.  It amazes me how so many (strangers) came together to create something that brings a smile to my face every time I see the video. As I was preparing for day zero for LitheSpeed (I don't officially start until tomorrow), I found myself singing the song and thinking about "the feeling".   After taking a week off, I was able to break the cycle that had me feeling a bit numb for so long.  Just a few weeks ago, I felt like I was trying to keep control of an uncontrollable situation.  That can become exhausting.  But today I felt completely different.  This morning I felt excited about what I was about to do.  I felt an entrepreneurial drive I haven't felt for a long time.  It's that feeling when you play offense not defense.

Tomorrow is day one.  I have my Kanban loaded.  I have my WIP limited.  I got a feelin' tomorrow is gonna be a good day.  Let's do it.

Reading about Process Improvement

Over the weekend, I found myself trying to read a physical book about systems analysis while listening to a book on operational process improvement.  I'm not going to go into the physical book because I am so impressed with the audio book.  I guess it wouldn't matter if it was physical, digital, or audio.  It's just a really really good book! It's titled: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (yes, if someone clicks on that link and buys a book, I would get credit)

Though the story reads like fiction, in its introduction of characters and story, it does an amazing job of introducing concepts to the reader.  The main character manages a production plant, where everything is always behind schedule and things are looking pretty bad. (Sound like any projects you know?)  The production plant is doing so poorly, the company has given the main character an ultimatum.   With a threat of closure, the plant has three months to turn operations from being unprofitable and chronically late on deliveries to being profitable and successful.  In the book, we are introduced to the Socratic method. Throughout the book, a character poses questions to another or a member of a team, which in turn causes them to talk amongst themselves to come up with a solution to their problem.

Because the book revolves around manufacturing and not application development or project management, there are a few dotted lines that need to be drawn.  But, overall, it really got my wheels spinning.  It doesn't matter if you're using Kanban or if you're in any type of management position, I would recommend this book.

One quote really stuck with me

Intuitive conclusions (common sense) are commonly masked by common practice

Process Improvement

The following lists some of the ways that processes can be improved.

• Reduce work-in-process (WIP) inventory to reduce lead time
• Add additional resources to increase capacity of the bottleneck
• Improve the efficiency of the bottleneck activity to increase process capacity
• Move work away from bottleneck resources where possible to increase process capacity
• Increase availability of bottleneck resources to increase process capacity
• Minimize non-value adding activities to decrease cost and reduce lead time

Like the drawing? Get it free from Pictofigo

Valentine's Day Pull System

Nothing is quite as romantic as sitting with your husband or wife, sharing a dinner of fondue.  Nothing, that is, unless you’re sitting with me.  I’m not a big fondue guy.  This is sad because my wife loves it.  She enjoys the whole process.  To counter that, I like my food to be given to me, already prepared.  I enjoy the results! So, leave it to me to point at the fondue pot half way through dinner and yell “Fondue is a pull system!  Fondue is a pull system!”

What is a pull system you ask?  Perhaps you’ve heard of Drum-Buffer-Rope or Kanban?

Businessdictionary.com defines it as a Manufacturing system in which production is based on actual demand, and where information flows from market to management in a direction opposite to that in traditional (push) systems.

The idea behind a pull system is to keep a smooth production flow.  For the sake of argument, let’s say N is a volume of work output.  It can be trouble-ticket call volume, software development, or hardware manufacturing.  Any of these work in the example.  If you and your team can consistently deliver quality N in a month, and keep a good work-life balance, you should know that a C-Level executive asking you to deliver N+10 is going to create bottlenecks in your process flow.  Your overall delivery velocity is going to slow and your team is going to work longer hours trying to deliver N+10.  This increase is unsustainable unless something changes.  You need to get back to N, either by cutting back the work, expanding the amount of people or things to complete the work, or find some efficiencies.

You limited your work in progress (WIP) for a reason!  If more is going into your process than is coming out, you’re going to accumulate a backlog.  For every unit exiting your process, you should have another unit ready to enter it.

For fondue, you limit your work in progress by the amount of long-stemmed forks you have to put into the pot (caquelon).  Before you start, you cut up all of your fruits, vegetables, meats...whatever you plan to dip.  That’s your product backlog.  You then begin dipping whatever you have, X at a time.  We had 3 forks each.  When the food is done, you take it off the fork, add another piece of food, and back into the pot it goes.  You can’t eat anything until it’s done with the process.

Am I a romantic buzz kill or what!?

Image: Recipe Tips

My Personal Kanban 2.0

I commonly get asked what I personally use to manage my work. The answer is almost too simple. I use a Personal Kanban. Now, I'm no efficiency guru. I'm no expert on Kanban. I just need a simple system that satisfies a few requirements and makes sense to me.

Personal Kanban

Requirements

1. I need something visual to combat my ADD.

2. It must visually capture all of my Backlog of work.

3. I will help me visualize what Work is In Progress.

4. It allows me (and others) to see what got Done this week.

Now, I've been using task boards for probably half a decade now. When you have that one stakeholder who cruises by your office or cube (constantly) and asks what you're working on, you can point at the wall and not even look up from your monitor. The board proves its worth just by cutting down on those people interrupting your day.  After a while, people get used to knowing what's going on and appreciate the transparency.  It's strange that I need to point that out.  Who benefits by not embracing transparency?  That may be a question left to the comments.

The key difference between a Kanban board and a regular task board is a column limiting your work in progress.  My first exposure to this was from a Scrum Master training session being led by Sanjiv Augustine. Sanjiv displayed a PowerPoint slide of what appeared to be a Los Angeles freeway.  During rush-hour, the number of vehicles coming onto the freeway is limited (by on-ramp lights).  This attempt to control the volume of traffic flow onto the freeway allows vehicles already on the freeway to move at a faster pace and in turn exit the freeway.  This visual freeway analogy was like a light bulb moment for me.  When I got back to the office and began limiting my Work In Progress (WIP), I did indeed increase my delivery rate.  The days of multitasking are now in my past!

Jim Benson

Soon after I started using a Kanban, I met Jim Benson of Modus Cooperandi.  I would describe Jim as a Kanban Sensei.  If you ever want to know more about Kanbans, Jim's your man.  Go check out the  Personal Kanban website.  Though Kanban is kind of a background business process to me, I still check out the site from time to time to see how others are using Kanban.

Tool

To wrap this up, there's only one "tech" tool I use to bridge the gap between my home and office.  It's call AgileZen.  AgileZen is a Kanban web application.  Though I have all of my work  work on my Kanban board at the office, my wife would frown on seeing a wall of post-it notes next to my desk at home.  So, I use AgileZen to manage both my personal and work tasks while away from the office.  Some people may choose to just use the electronic version.  I just can't let go of the satisfaction of moving a post-it note from WIP to Done.

Graphic: Pictofigo