Making Work Visible – Part 5

This week we talked about exposing unplanned work and prioritizing work. The Perfect Crime: Unplanned Work Find a system of tracking every time you get interrupted. This could be putting a sticky note on the board for every task you…

Making Work Visible – Part 4

This week we talked about ambushing the problem of too much WIP and exposing dependencies. Ambush the Ringleader We spent a fair amount of discussion around the value of swimlanes on a kanban board. All of us have used the…

Summary: The Manager’s Path

A colleague gave me this book earlier this year (2019), and it’s been on my to-read list since June 2017. I read it cover-to-cover, then went back to compile all of my margin notes and underlined parts. The latter part…

Making Work Visible – Part 3

This week we talked about the last thief of time (neglected work) and exposing time theft using a kanban board. Thief of Time: Neglected Work Zombie projects (not dead, but not getting attention either) are like old servers. The person…

Making Work Visible – Part 2

This week we talked about three other thieves of time: unknown dependencies, unplanned work, and conflicting priorities. Thief of Time: Unknown Dependencies Dependencies can be architecture, expertise, or sequential activities. If you’re the only skillset expert, you are a bottleneck….