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Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life

Introduction

We cannot make informed decisions or create a quality product without first understanding why are we doing what we are doing. Lack of context creates waste, resulting in long work days, poor planning, and the inability to keep commitments outside the office.

Tools should give you control and not take anything.

The basics of Personal Kanban

You need a way to actually see the tasks you’re expected to perform so you can do the right work at the right time. Personal Kanban is a visual representation of work that makes the conceptual tangible. It shows what needs to be done, what is complete, what is being delayed, and what is going on at this precise moment.

Visualisation tools:

  • Lists: Offer zero context for work, allow no reorganisation or repriorisation, and obscure vital priorities beneath piles of marginally useful work.
  • Mind map: It’s an improvement versus lists. It doesn’t help to complete tasks or distinguish between work shared by multiple people. Its greatest limitation is that the information conveyed is not obvious.
  • Kanban: It works great for software development. Its focus on team work increases productivity and effectiveness. It shows the flow of work, limit the work-in-progress, and it captures all tasks, not just those directly related to software production. It is flexible enough to relate extremely variable or even chaotic workload.

Rules

  1. Visualise your work. It’s challenging to understand what we can’t see. When we see work in its various contexts, real trade-offs become explicit. We now have a physical record of all those demands on our time. This allow us to make better decisions.
  2. Limit your work-in-progress (WIP). We cannot do more than we are capable of doing. This seems obvious, but it’s not. Our capacity for work is limited by a host of factors including the amount of time we have, the predictability of the task at hand, our level of experience with the task type, our energy level, the amount of work we currently we have in progress. Limiting our WIP allows us the time to focus, work quickly, react calmly to change, and do a thoughtful job.

With Personal Kanban, principles take precedence over process. Process should change with context.

When we see the landscape of our work, we identify better courses of action because have clarity.

Why call it Personal Kanban

Personal Kanban tracks items of importance to the individual: tasks, appointments, small projects (work).

Organisational Kanban tracks items of value to the organisation. The goal is to understand the predictable and repeatable process of creating something. It focuses on standard work products, organisational efficiencies, and waste reduction.

People are less predictable than organisations. We want to understand the nature of our work, but not force it. Innovation relies on inspiration through exploration and experimentation.

Lean is both a philosophy and a discipline which, at its core, increases access to information to ensure responsible decision making in the service of creating value.

Kaizen is a state of continuous improvement where people naturally look for ways to improve poorly performing practices.

When we visualise our work, we adopt a kaizen mindset; we are weened from the comfort of complacency and actively seek out opportunities for improvement.

Why it works

When we are able to represent each of our tasks, it becomes tangible. Touching, feeling physically interacting with our tasks transforms work-as-a-concept into work-as-a-concrete-experience. Each time we move a sticky note, we receive kinesthetic feedback: the tactile action is both a data point and a reward. A regular succession of these movements creates a cadence, a rhythm of work.

Good leaders provide enough management oversight to give a clear and coherent idea of vision and purpose, but not to the extent that they micromanage. They ensure employees have the information they need to make good decisions, and then step back to let the good decisions happen.

Building your first Personal Kanban

Step one: get your stuff ready

I’ve never drawn the same kanban twice

The more you use your Personal Kanban, the more you’ll need to tailor it to the situation at hand.

Step two: establish your value stream

Value Stream: The flow of work from beginning to completion

The most simple value stream is READY (working waiting to be processed), DOING (work-in-progress), and DONE (completed work).

Step three: establish your backlog

Backlog: Work you have yet to do.

When there is way too much work, overcoming denial, acknowledging the pain, and accepting it needs addressing are stages necessary in understanding our work.

Lay out the backlog sticky notes next to your board. Decide which tasks need to be completed first and pull them into your READY column.

Step four: establish your WIP limit

WIP limit: the amount of work you can handle at any given time.

The human brain needs closure (Zeigarnik Effect). Unfinished tasks vie for our attention, causing intrusive thoughts that ultimately impede productivity and increase the opportunity for error creating an anxiety feedback loop. Becoming psychologically or physically debilitating.

Once you move a sticky note to DONE you know your work is done and you can focus on finishing the next task. Working like this is fulfilling.

The close you get to reaching your capacity, the more stress taxes your brain’s resources, and impacts your performance.

Research consistently shows we cannot reach our maximum effectiveness while multitasking. Instead, maximum effectiveness results when we limit our WIP and focus on the task before us.

Start by setting an arbitrary WIP limit. Add this number to your DOING column. Expect that number to change.

Step five: begin to pull

Pull: To bring a task into DOING you have capacity for it.

Each time you pull a task from READ into DOING you’re prioritising based on your current context. Pull no more than your WIP limit.

The physical act of moving sticky notes to change their status satisfies our brain’s need for closure.

We pull work into DOING only when we have room to accommodate it. Pulling is a wilful act. This is different from “pushing” where people tell you what to do do and when to do it, regardless of whether you have capacity for it or if it is really the highest priority task at the time.

Step six: reflect

From time to time, reflect on the tasks that have been done:

  • Which tasks did you do particularly well?
  • Which tasks made you feel good about yourself?
  • Which tasks were difficult to complete?
  • Were the right tasks completed at the right time?
  • Did the tasks completed provide value?

Then ask yourself Why?

This is what we call a “retrospective”.

Kanban boosters

Every time your personal work involves another person or something happens outside your control, make sure it is reflected on your board. These are the stages where delay and waste can be injected. When work stagnates, is know as a “bottleneck”. You want to be able to visualise these points.

Today

The TODAY column is where you pull tasks you expect to accomplish today. We rarely get to tackle or finish everything we set out to do.

The TODAY column shows us the difference between what we want to do each day and what we can actually achieve.

My time management is in the league with the freeway 

Capacity: How much stuff will fit
Throughput: How much stuff will flow

A freeway ranges between 0 and 100% capacity; it can be anywhere from totally empty to completely filled with vehicles. But the freeway doesn’t optimise for capacity, it optimises for throughput. Capacity is a spatial relationship, while throughput is a flow relationship.

Like traffic, work does not fit. Work flows.

When we don’t acknowledge or respect our work’s flow we fall prey to multitasking. We rush through one thing to get next, striving for quantity (productivity) when we know quality (effectiveness) will surely suffer.

A 2009 Stanford University study dispels the myth that multitaskers have mental edge over those who focus on a single task, ultimately deeming multitasking counterproductive. High multitaskers optimise for capacity not for throughput.

We want throughput. Throughput is a flowbased system. It measures success by the amount of quality work flowing from READY to DONE over time, not just the volume of work. The rate which work moves from READY to DONE is our throughput.

In four years I’ll send Julie to university

How? Personally and professionally, we often get stuck in “analysis paralysis”. We overcomplicate our situation painstakingly planning to the minutest detail, details that in the beginning we have limited insight into. We allow the planning phase to stall the action phase. Carl needs to come up with a few steps he can take immediately. He takes those sticky notes and populates his READY column with them. In his brain immediately understands hat progress is being made towards his goal. He doesn’t worry he didn’t solve every issue on the first day, he’s accepted that we never solve every issue.

To-do lists: spawns of the devil

These are the embodiment of evil. They torment us, controlling what we do, highlighting we haven’t. We need context, something to-do lists don’t provide. There is no flow from one action to the next, no suspense and ultimately, no reward.

Thoughtful prioritisation and completion beats rigorous up-front planning.

Natural flows

Flow: work’s natural movement 

Flow: The natural progress of work
Cadence: The predictable and regular elements of work
Slack: The gaps between work that make flow possible

Observing a specific event is often less informative than observing a stream of events. It is precisely this flow which give us context, and that context leads to clarity.

Slack: avoiding too many notes

Consider what makes a roadway flow. It’s the balance between cars and open space that give us flowing traffic.

That open space is called “slack”. We need slack in our workflow, we need space to adjust.

Pull too many sticky notes into your TODAY column and the overload will make you less responsive.

Pull vs Push

Pull is essential for stability and sustainability. The more a system relies to force action, the less sustainable it becomes.

Push systems tend to cause bottlenecks by ignoring natural capacity. Work is released downstream whether or not the worker has the capacity to process it. Capacity problems are discovered after the fact, works begins to pile up and, as it grows, can easily escalate into an emergency.

In a pull system people take work only when they have the capacity to do so.

Pushing tends to be a blind act; the initiator has little idea of the terrain situated before him.

Pulling is a rational act. The initiator is familiar with the terrain that lies ahead, and can gauge the amount of room in which to manoeuvre.

When you reach into your backlog and pull a task READY into DOING, you’re making a conscious choice based on the room you have in your WIP.

Pull when you can, be pushed when you must.

Components of a quality life

Metacognition: a cure for the common wisdom

We obsess over getting stuff done, rather than getting the right stuff done, and at the right time. We focus so intently on task completion that we lose sight of the work we’re engaged in.

Focusing on productivity is myopic. Effectiveness is our goal, and for that we need clarity. Clarity is not just understanding what we’re doing, it’s why and how we’re doing it.

Productivity, efficiency and effectiveness 

Productivity: You get a lot of work done, but is it the right work?
Efficiency: Your work is easily done, but is it focused for maximum effect?
Effectiveness: You get the right work done ad the right time... this time. Is this process repeatable?

Productivity should not be the ultimate measure of human potential.

Personal Kanban is:

  • A productivity tool: limiting our WIP helps us accomplish more.
  • An efficiency tool: focusing on our value stream encourages us to find ways to do more while expending less effort.
  • An effectiveness tool: making our options explicit leads us to make informed decisions.

To feel truly successful, fulfilled, or self-actualised, we need to feel pride in our work.

Ending our priorities

In the absence of a visual control, we don’t estimate, we guess. Many of us consider ourselves experts in our craft and so we estimate based on our memory. Educated guesswork is no substitute for thoughtful observation.

According to the book “Predictably Irrational”, Dr. Ariely hypothesises that deadlines are the best cure for procrastination. Deadlines are a proxy for clarity.

Smaller, faster, better: controlling task size and limiting WIP

Making tasks smaller isn’t enough. We should focus on limiting WIP and completing tasks first, and make task size reduction a secondary concern.

Planning should occur with minimal waste; it shouldn’t become overhead.

Prioritisation in theory and practice

Some options have undeniable immediate value, there are others we should exercise for long-term effectiveness. With an eye for both short-term and long-term effectiveness, we avoid the traps of unchecked productivity planning.

Urgent and important

Tasks whose status escalates into Urgent and Important should be flagged for a retrospective. Our focus should be on avoiding emergencies, not reacting to them.

Important but not urgent

Quality-related tasks, the time and effort you spend here is an investment in future quality. These tasks provide future rather than immediate results. This quadrant is the antidote for panic.

Urgent but not important

This is the quadrant of social investment.

Not urgent and not important

This quadrant can be of assumed wast, or it can be one for actions you find pleasant (pleasant is good!). Here is where experimentation occurs, where we find new options. In the other three quadrants you will find work; here you will find inspiration.

All four type of tasks are integral to a balanced life.

PRIORITY 1 | PRIORITY 2 | PRIORITY 3 | TODAY | DOING | DONE
-----------|------------|------------|-------|-------|-----
           |            |            |       |       |

The priority filter provides you with a deep visual distillation high priority tasks in your backlog.

You can use colour and shape for cards. These things are deceptively simple yet robust ways to differentiate between tasks, projects, collaborators, or priority.

Expert: metrics in Peronal Kanban

Metrics should reflect our context, revealing the difference between expected and actual progress.

Situational knowledge is seeing the road, metrics are the gas gauge.

Metrics gathered but not used are waste, so choose them with care.

Note: Don’t fall prey to “metric-blindless” where you rely too heavily on metrics without having good situational knowledge.

Metric One: your gut

Our intuition can tell us when something needs to be improved. These impulses are what we base our hypothesis on.

Metric two: the process laboratory

We can introduce columns to visualise certain hypotheses about our successes or failures.

By visualising Reginald’s actions, his impact on the team is made obvious: Tasks are stalled three days on average by that guy’s obsessive need to focus.

Metric three: the subjective well being box

Doing things you don’t enjoy reduces your effectiveness.

Which brings us to an easy metric: the Subjective Well-Being Box (SWB).

The SWB helps us identify what exactly impacts our mood so that we can begin to optimise for “pretty good”, “good” or even “great”. It also lets us put into perspective onerous tasks we simply don’t like doing.

When you complete a task and it moves you to an extreme, annotate it as a positive or negative experience, and why in the SWB.

Don’t discard the contents of your SWB until you begin to recognise patterns. When you do, consider:

  • When to refuse work.
  • When to delegate work.
  • What changes can help ensure success.
  • Which processes you might want to recreate.
  • What your career options really are.
  • How to balance family, career, recreation and personal development.

Metric four: time

If you want to get all statistical. When you create a sticky note, include the date of creation (Born), the date you pull it into READY (Begin), the date you began working on it (WIP), and when you are finished, the date you pull it into DONE (Done).

Lead time is the time it takes a task to travel from your backlog to completion. Cycle time is the time it takes to travel from READY to DONE.

Strive for improvement

Everyone can excel with clarity, everyone can provide value.

A need is only truly met if there is clarity around it. The need for shelter is fulfilled only if there is a sense of stability around it, when there is an assurance it won’t be taken away.

When a need is secured we’re better equipped to explore additional needs.

We progress towards actualisation when we adopt a mindset that minimises fear and embraces growth.

Course corrections: the reality of reprioritisation

Making course corrections while there’re still small ensure success with the least degree of disruption.

Projects are seldom precise. Deviation from the original plan is inevitable and frequent small adjustments are unavoidable. We instinctively course correct all the time.

The bedrock of introspection

At the moment we make them, pragmatic decisions and emotional decisions are often indistinguishable. We need to revisit our decisions after the fact, do we understand the motivation?

That’s where introspection comes in. When we’re introspective, we observe our thought processes to understand the reasoning behind our decisions.

Retrospectives

Retrospectives are regular and ritualised moments of collective reflection. Retrospectives allow a team to pause and consider what went well with their project, what didn’t go as expected, and what could be improved going forward.

Can take place at whatever intervals you’re comfortable with, the more frequent, the fresher things are in your mind. It’s an opportunity to recognise accomplishments (celebration), bemoan setbacks (catharsis), and re-orient a project for future action (kaizen event).

It’s helpful to feature a RETROSPECTIVE column as the final column of your Personal Kanban.

At the beginning or tend of each week hold a restrospective and quickly examine completed tasks. Don’t pass up opportunities to address issues before they escalate.

Solving problems at their source

When things go wrong, our first line of defence is to identify who or what appears to be responsible.

Pattern matching as a foundation for problem solving

Connecting the dots allows us to interpret and make assumptions about our environment.

Visualising tasks and engaging with them physically and cognitively allows us to comprehend patterns in our work.

Opportunities for improvement usually arise when a change in pattern is detected. Poorly performing patterns are often merely symptoms of an underlying problem.

Two simplest ways to analyse where to improve:

  • The Five Whys: Problems often have nested causes. Repeat “why” five times to every matter, until you arrive at something with real context. Stopping after the first Why? confuses the symptom with the cause. Drilling down the heart of the matter exposes an actionable reason for the event.
  • The Socratic Method: You question your own assumptions, stripping away confounding information to reveal the truth embedded in your position. Critical self-enquiry – playing your own devil’s advocate – requires both patience and honesty, but is essential in the quest for improvement.

Endgame

Visualise your work. Limit your work-in-progress

Visualising our work helps us appropriately channel our efforts by no letting us hide unattractive tasks in the recesses of our minds.

Work unseen is work uncontrolled and we can’t (and shouldn’t) do more work than we can handle.

Appendix: Personal Kanban design patterns

Sequestering approach: dealing with repetitive tasks

The Sequestering Approach is specifically designed to deal with repetitive tasks in an elegant way. Repetitive tasks can clutter your Kanban and create wasteful overhead. Consider giving repetitive tasks their own visualisation and WIP treatment. Sequester them in a dedicated area of your Kanban. When a task is complete, simply check that day’s box.

┌───────┬───────────┬──────┐
│ READY │ DOING (3) │ DONE │
├───────┼───────────┼──────┤
│       │           │      │
·       ·           ·      ·
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ RECURRING TASKS                         │
├──────────┬─────────┬──────┬──────┬──────┤
│ ITEM     │ REPEAT  │ LAST │ NEXT │ DONE │
├──────────┼─────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│ STANDUP  │ DAILY   │  ──  │  ──  │  X   │
│ MEETING  │ MONTHLY │ 6/15 │ 7/15 │  X   │
│ CHECK IN │ MONTHLY │ 6/20 │ 7/20 │      │
·          ·         ·      ·      ·      ·

Emergency response approach: taming unexpected workloads

In an emergency response situation, you simply don’t have time to fully complete each task before starting a new one, and tracking individual sub-tasks is a waste of your time.

This is multitasking by necessity, but it’s controlled multitasking.

The value stream for emergency response approach shows:

  • BEGUN: Begun to work in the task
  • ASSEMBLING: Gathering paperwork or other requirements
  • ASSEMBLED: Requirements are complete
  • ACTIVE: If you are waiting someone else to act
  • COMPLETE: If it’s complete

It might be useful to include a NOTES column.

Time capsule approach

We invariably amass a lot of small tasks that are important but not urgent. These tasks may start out benign, but the longer we put them off the more likely they’ll spiral into crisis.

All those little tasks pull them off the board, go to your desk, and start doing them until they’re done or your day is over. This is a speed tasking exercise.

If you find yourself de-cluttering more than once a month, then it’s likely you are overcommitting yourself.

Balanced throughput approach

Give a WIP limit of three small tasks to get done quickly, then a WIP limit of two larger tasks to do later.

Don’t move completed tasks off your board until the end of the day or until all five tasks (large and small) are complete. If you replace them, you aren’t actually balancing your throughput.

Personal Kanban and Pomodoro

Pomodoro Technique is useful when complete immersion is the only way to get a task out of WIP.

Pomodoro is a perfect complement to Personal Kanban, helping you process your WIP in 25 minute bursts.