Feedback from Agile2014 Personal Kanban workshop

The votes and comments are in! A little over a week ago, I led a Personal Kanban workshop at Agile2014.  It was to be both informative and interactive. Below is what Agile Alliance sent me.

Dear Derek Huether,

Thank you for presenting at the Agile Alliance Agile2014 Conference; your session helped make the conference a real success!

Please find attached the raw feedback data (including comments) for your session entitled "At home and work, how to get more stuff done. An introduction to Personal Kanban", in which 14 attendees left feedback.

The feedback questions are based on a 5 rating scale, with 5 being the highest score.

Your average ratings are shown below:

• Session Meets Expectations: 4.57
• Recommend To Colleague: 4.71
• Presentation Skills: 4.71
• Command Of Topic: 4.86
• Description Matches Content: 4.79
• Overall Rating: 4.79

My Personal Kanban deck at Agile2014

Here is the deck from my Agile2014 workshop on Personal Kanban. Participants were introduced to the principles of Lean and the application of Kanban to visualize their work, limit distraction and waste, and get stuff done. I covered the core concepts outlined in Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry’s book, Personal Kanban, to get attendees of my workshop started.

Agile 2014 - Personal Kanban from Derek Huether

Click here for Agile 2014 Workshop Tasks.pdf, referenced in my workshop

Derek Huether Presenting at Agile 2014 in Orlando, Florida

It's official. I'm going to be presenting at Agile2014 in Orlando this summer. My 75-minute session will be part of an Learning track that is targeted at anyone who struggles with getting their work done. My session will be on Friday, August 1 at 09:00 in the Sarasota Room. 

Hope to see you all in Florida!

At home and work, how to get more stuff done. An introduction to Personal Kanban.

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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.

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

---

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

Limit your Holiday WIP with Personal Kanban

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 ToDo, 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.

Kanban 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 – Chanukah

Ready

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!

Coke Freestyle VMS

coke_freestyle_menu

coke_freestyle_screen

My family and I went into a California Tortilla the other night to grab a quick dinner. Off to the side I notice a long line of people waiting to fill their soda cups.  It used to be, when you went out for fast food, the people behind the counter would ask you what you wanted and they would hand it to you.  Now, at this location, it appeared it could take as long to get our drinks (in a separate line) as it would to get our food.  Though I appreciate this California Tortilla location wanting to empower the consumer by giving us 100+ choices of our favorite mixture of soda-pop, most people in line appeared paralyzed by the amount of combinations and permutations.  When I went into a different California Tortilla, I noticed an old-school fountain machine.  There was no line and I saw two people filling their soda cups at the same time.  It made me question the value the additional choices offered, especially when all I want is water.

So, I guess my question is, should there be fewer options or a better feedback tool for consumers to respond to?  When doing a little research on this post, I found a poster of a freestyle "menu" at Taco Mac.  I believe the use of this VMS (Visual Management System) could keep the lines short at the California Tortilla location.  But, I don't know.  Are there shorter (or no) lines at the Atlanta Taco Macs?  To shorten the lines at California Tortilla, I would propose they get the menus and hang a poster near the machine.  I think people would be more apt to decide what they wanted before they stand in front of this machine with 100+ choice presented to them.  I think it would cut down on people browsing the menu, while there is a line behind them.  My goal?  I want the cut down lead time and cycle time as much as possible.  Not sure what those are?  I found a great definition by Corey Ladas.

Lead time clock starts when the request is made and ends at delivery. Cycle time clock starts when work begins on the request and ends when the item is ready for delivery. Cycle time is a more mechanical measure of process capability. Lead time is what the customer sees.

Lead time depends on cycle time, but also depends on your willingness to keep a backlog, the customer’s patience, and the customer’s readiness for delivery.

Another way to think about it is: cycle time measures the completion rate, lead time measures the arrival rate. A producer has limited strategies to influence lead time. One is pricing (managing the arrival rate), another is managing cycle time (completing work faster/slower than the arrival rate).

I know you usually don't think of Agile or Lean when talking about fish tacos, burritos and soda-pop, but I had to get this off my chest.

My Personal Kanban Birthday gift

I would like to publicly thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes.  Gotta love Facebook, Google+ and all of the other places that broadcast your birthday to the world.  It's actually pretty cool to hear from people I haven't talked to in a while.  Rather than go into details about how I ate durian fruit or how I was convinced my wife hired a belly dancer for our dinner date with friends, I'll focus on the good stuff. Not only did I score several containers of coffee, but I also got a physical copy of Personal Kanban from my parents. I have Jim and Tonianne's Kindle version of Personal Kanban but sometimes when you really like something, you just have to have a physical copy.  I honestly didn't think I was that sentimental.

My son and I also got matching white boards to help us navigate our lives.  So, if you're thinking of a stocking stuffer this year, get that special person a copy of Personal Kanban and some post-its.  They'll be glad you did.

Oh, and if you look in the background of the photo, you'll see my wife has LeanKit Kanban up on her screen.  Ya, we're a weird family.

LeanKit Kanban

When the Agile Manifesto for Agile Software Development was written 10 years ago, it stated "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it." The very first of four values listed within the Manifesto was "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools"

The Manifesto goes on to state "...while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."

Well, I am compelled to write about one of the items on the right.  I still believe the tool should be good enough that it helps you reach your goals.  But after that, it should not become a big process onto itself.  What I want to do is finish tasks and get some actual closure on them.

I recently read in the book Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, a phenomenon known as the "Zeigarnik Effect".  It states that 90% of people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.  Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnic found that the human brain becomes preoccupied with things that are not closed.

Though I have leveraged Kanban with teams, it took me a while to realize that Visual Control Systems could be used to visualize and manage both personal and professional work.  I then found myself using a physical board at the office and an electronic version (web-based tool) at home.

What is visual control, exactly?

A visual control is a technique employed in many places where information is communicated by using visual signals instead of texts or other written instructions. The design is deliberate in allowing quick recognition of the information being communicated, in order to increase efficiency and clarity.

The real question is, can a process tool take the place of individuals and interactions?  Perhaps we need to stop and think about the reality of our world.  Is everyone in your company physically located in the same office space or are you geographically dispersed?  If you're not all sitting there together in an open workspace, you need to find a tool that will bridge that physical gap and then stay out of the way. Bandit Software's  LeanKit Kanban does that.  Let me tell you what puts LeanKit in the lead of the Kanban tool race.  It's called mobile computing.

I seem to carry my iPad with me everywhere. (I'll be getting an iPhone as soon as my contract is up).  Though the LeanKit iPhone/iPod interface could use a little work, the iPad interface is completely awesome.  The image above is actually a screen print from my iPad.  The design is simple; it's lightweight; it's functional.  It helps me visualize my work and it helps control my work in process.  Merge LeanKit Kanban and an iPad and you will have an amazing user experience, as it allows individuals to interact wherever they see fit.  I'm happy because I can access half a dozen different boards with tap of my finger and my wife is happy because I didn't cover the walls of my home office with whiteboards and sticky notes.

If you're thinking about using a web-based Kanban tool for yourself, your team, or your organization, all of the vendors out there have relatively similar features.  See which one fits your budget.  If you or your teams are using mobile devices like iPhones, iPods, or iPads (in addition to desktops or laptops), you need to go to iTunes and download this app.  Though you need to have an existing LeanKit account to make the Apple App versions work, you can get a personal account for free!

After you see how well it works for your personal life, I don't doubt you'll be using it in the office in the not-too-distant future.

HT: Wikipedia HT: LeanKit HT: Personal Kanban