Why Kanban works · chapter 5 of 5 · 3 min
What to do on Monday
Everything in the last four chapters comes down to six changes a team can make next week. Here they are, and a place to try them before you do.
Six changes
- Draw the steps you actually have, and agree what "done" means for each one. Change nothing else: that is why this is cheap to try.
- Put a counter on every card: the days since somebody started it. It is the number that tells you how long your work really takes.
- Put a limit on every step, starting at about one card per person where the work is built. The limits are what stop a queue forming, and a queue is what makes answers slow.
- When a limit stops you, move somebody else’s card: review it, validate it, unblock it. The team finishes more when it finishes together.
- Find the slowest step, and look after it: leave it a little slack, so a bad day upstream never leaves it idle, and make it faster before you add anybody to it. Faster builds, fewer hand-offs, less waiting on other teams.
- Watch the wall, not the people. Someone idle is cheap. The step that sets your pace standing idle is not, and a pile anywhere is a bill you have already run up.
None of it requires a tool. All of it is easier with a wall that counts the days for you, which is the argument for the rest of this site.
Try them on the small workflow first
Before changing a real team, you can try the changes on the small workflow of the last two chapters: Specify takes a day and Validate takes a day, one person on each, and Implement is the slow step. Here you choose how long Implement takes, how many people are on it, how much each step may hold, and how much the work varies. Every board you settle on is kept below, best first.
The fastest answer anyone has found is 1.0 weeks, and it is not found by adding people.
1.0 items a week · 2.2 in progress · 2.2 weeks to answer · 46% of people's days at work
an item, filling as it is worked · waiting for someone · the people on the step, lit while they have work
Now the wall
kanbanwall is a board built on exactly this: steps you draw yourself, a WIP limit per group, a counter on every card, and a cycle time measured from the board's own events. The demo board is a real one, on the server, and needs no account.