FV and FVP Forum > FV and kanban
We discussed Kanban a year ago. I find that while industrial Kanban is a good idea, personal Kanban is not that useful. Specifically, the main operational idea of Kanban is to streamline operations so that work goes from station to station, and though people might wait occasionally, there is no work waiting. This increases the speed that work objects go through the system.
When you scale that down to one person, you get told "do one thing until it's done, then do the next thing." Which isn't much of a system.
When you scale that down to one person, you get told "do one thing until it's done, then do the next thing." Which isn't much of a system.
April 5, 2012 at 14:46 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
FV only halfway qualifies as a kanban, and I think the missing half is key to its effectiveness.
"Peronsal Kanban":
1. Visualize your work
2. Limit work in progress
(1) is typically achieved by drawing columns on a whiteboard, and (2) typically by writing a number on each column as a limit on the number of tasks in that column. Both are excellent ideas.
So ... if my "Doing" column has a limit of three, then I can fill it with "Write dissertation" and "Move entire household to Texas" and "Eliminate human sadness globally" but I must not overload it by adding "eat breakfast" or "check email." Similarly, it is okay if I am Doing "eat breakfast" and "check email" and "replace shoelace," but I'd certainly better not "feed dog" until a slot opens up.
I really wanted to like kanban, about a year ago, and I found that many of Mark's systems appeared to be kanban-compatible. But actually contemplating the limit on work-in-progress, I always found there to be a serious sticking point: personal tasks are far too dissimilar in size and, well, context, to be mapped into a strict "value stream." It is commonly suggested that all tasks must be phrased so as to denote "manageable" bits of work, such as "no more than two hours" or "achievable in one session," etc. In theory, this is a perfect solution; in practice, it adds a psychological barrier to entry and obstructs processing of vaguely-formed tasks for which Mark's "grass catchers" excel.
Plus, plain kanban completely ignores *selecting* the tasks for the board. Industrially, this is done by a black box labeled "Manager" who does all the planning and then posts the tasks into the "Backlog" columned to be "pulled" by the workers. For personal work, the entire difficulty lies in the fact that we are our own managers. I've never had trouble completing work assigned to me by others. I've had trouble deciding what to assign myself and juggling the time/resources spent in assigning versus doing, and clarifying the web of priorities when time or resources are crunched. I've also never had (much) trouble assigning work to others. It's always harder when you know you will be doing the actual work yourself.
Mark's systems address the psychological issues of being your own manager, as well as the gritty reality that your "Backlog" column is just another list. In any personal kanban that has run for any length of time, there may be a dozen tasks in the Backlog column, but there is a nasty pile of stuff waiting to go into the Backlog column. That pile hides inside the "Manager" and is the entire source of difficulty for personal work.
I still want to like personal kanban. Many people who didn't have a system are very happy with it, confirming that any system is better than no system. But at this point I think Mark's systems are a step beyond kanban, for personal work.
[editing] You know it occurs to me, the FV chain, or any closed list, might considered a "limit to work in progress." However, these limits are much less static than the kanban column limits. For example, when processing an AF page, I am in a closed list of N items that may be all different sizes, but soon I will flip the page and encounter an entirely different list of N items. In an FV chain, I work from a temporarily closed list, whose length reflects time available and mood and many other things. So FV could be seen as limiting work in this way, but I find the dynamics different enough from kanban, and in a critical manner, that I can't call them similar.
"Peronsal Kanban":
1. Visualize your work
2. Limit work in progress
(1) is typically achieved by drawing columns on a whiteboard, and (2) typically by writing a number on each column as a limit on the number of tasks in that column. Both are excellent ideas.
So ... if my "Doing" column has a limit of three, then I can fill it with "Write dissertation" and "Move entire household to Texas" and "Eliminate human sadness globally" but I must not overload it by adding "eat breakfast" or "check email." Similarly, it is okay if I am Doing "eat breakfast" and "check email" and "replace shoelace," but I'd certainly better not "feed dog" until a slot opens up.
I really wanted to like kanban, about a year ago, and I found that many of Mark's systems appeared to be kanban-compatible. But actually contemplating the limit on work-in-progress, I always found there to be a serious sticking point: personal tasks are far too dissimilar in size and, well, context, to be mapped into a strict "value stream." It is commonly suggested that all tasks must be phrased so as to denote "manageable" bits of work, such as "no more than two hours" or "achievable in one session," etc. In theory, this is a perfect solution; in practice, it adds a psychological barrier to entry and obstructs processing of vaguely-formed tasks for which Mark's "grass catchers" excel.
Plus, plain kanban completely ignores *selecting* the tasks for the board. Industrially, this is done by a black box labeled "Manager" who does all the planning and then posts the tasks into the "Backlog" columned to be "pulled" by the workers. For personal work, the entire difficulty lies in the fact that we are our own managers. I've never had trouble completing work assigned to me by others. I've had trouble deciding what to assign myself and juggling the time/resources spent in assigning versus doing, and clarifying the web of priorities when time or resources are crunched. I've also never had (much) trouble assigning work to others. It's always harder when you know you will be doing the actual work yourself.
Mark's systems address the psychological issues of being your own manager, as well as the gritty reality that your "Backlog" column is just another list. In any personal kanban that has run for any length of time, there may be a dozen tasks in the Backlog column, but there is a nasty pile of stuff waiting to go into the Backlog column. That pile hides inside the "Manager" and is the entire source of difficulty for personal work.
I still want to like personal kanban. Many people who didn't have a system are very happy with it, confirming that any system is better than no system. But at this point I think Mark's systems are a step beyond kanban, for personal work.
[editing] You know it occurs to me, the FV chain, or any closed list, might considered a "limit to work in progress." However, these limits are much less static than the kanban column limits. For example, when processing an AF page, I am in a closed list of N items that may be all different sizes, but soon I will flip the page and encounter an entirely different list of N items. In an FV chain, I work from a temporarily closed list, whose length reflects time available and mood and many other things. So FV could be seen as limiting work in this way, but I find the dynamics different enough from kanban, and in a critical manner, that I can't call them similar.
April 5, 2012 at 15:26 |
Bernie
Bernie
The rest of your essay is okay, but the intro is befuddling and doesn't seem to connect to the rest.
<<FV only halfway qualifies as a kanban, and I think the missing half is key to its effectiveness.
"Peronsal Kanban":
1. Visualize your work
2. Limit work in progress
>>
What half is FV missing, and how is missing that half the key to FV's effectiveness? To my eye FV does neither 1, nor 2. Starting something, and rewriting on the end is standard FV practice, but anti-kanban. And visualizing primarily means being aware of what you're working on. Dotting things you will do next is fine, but kanban wants to know what things you have started and left undone.
Finally, you are right that Kanban doesn't help pick tasks, which to me is the most important point. Indeed the system encourages you to do 1 thing and finish it, which has a good probability of failing to notice and do some other task that needs to be done in the middle of that block.
<<FV only halfway qualifies as a kanban, and I think the missing half is key to its effectiveness.
"Peronsal Kanban":
1. Visualize your work
2. Limit work in progress
>>
What half is FV missing, and how is missing that half the key to FV's effectiveness? To my eye FV does neither 1, nor 2. Starting something, and rewriting on the end is standard FV practice, but anti-kanban. And visualizing primarily means being aware of what you're working on. Dotting things you will do next is fine, but kanban wants to know what things you have started and left undone.
Finally, you are right that Kanban doesn't help pick tasks, which to me is the most important point. Indeed the system encourages you to do 1 thing and finish it, which has a good probability of failing to notice and do some other task that needs to be done in the middle of that block.
April 5, 2012 at 17:54 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan,
<<What half is FV missing, and how is missing that half the key to FV's effectiveness? To my eye FV does neither 1, nor 2.>>
I meant that FV does (1) but not (2). I'll agree that whether it does (1) is in the eye of the beholder. It certainly does not do (2), not in the sense that kanban does.
If not for the overhead, I'd enjoy "visualizing my work" in FV by sticking stickies on a whiteboard to represent the tasks in the chain. Those visual and tactile elements appeal to me (moving completed stickies into a Done column, maybe even having a Doing column with a limit of one, into which to pull the chain's next task). But unless a wee tribe of stickie elves is available to make these for me with each new chain, I'd rather "visualize" my work simply by seeing the dotted task I'm working on and knowing where to find the next without having to think about it.
I might not have called this "visualizing" if it weren't for my earlier observation using SF, in which C2 seemed something like a Doing column. At that time I read a post by a Personal Kanban founder about an "innovative kanban pattern" that was just a two-column to-do list. The page was divided into topic regions with various numbers of slots in an attempt to provide balance among the topics. His pattern and Mark's SF pages were visually similar enough to get me thinking.
The obligatory URL:
http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/designpatterns/guest-post-my-current-personal-kanban-system/
<<What half is FV missing, and how is missing that half the key to FV's effectiveness? To my eye FV does neither 1, nor 2.>>
I meant that FV does (1) but not (2). I'll agree that whether it does (1) is in the eye of the beholder. It certainly does not do (2), not in the sense that kanban does.
If not for the overhead, I'd enjoy "visualizing my work" in FV by sticking stickies on a whiteboard to represent the tasks in the chain. Those visual and tactile elements appeal to me (moving completed stickies into a Done column, maybe even having a Doing column with a limit of one, into which to pull the chain's next task). But unless a wee tribe of stickie elves is available to make these for me with each new chain, I'd rather "visualize" my work simply by seeing the dotted task I'm working on and knowing where to find the next without having to think about it.
I might not have called this "visualizing" if it weren't for my earlier observation using SF, in which C2 seemed something like a Doing column. At that time I read a post by a Personal Kanban founder about an "innovative kanban pattern" that was just a two-column to-do list. The page was divided into topic regions with various numbers of slots in an attempt to provide balance among the topics. His pattern and Mark's SF pages were visually similar enough to get me thinking.
The obligatory URL:
http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/designpatterns/guest-post-my-current-personal-kanban-system/
April 6, 2012 at 5:46 |
Bernie
Bernie
I never meant to kill this thread, and I'm sorry if I've done so. Kanban still fascinates me, with its self-organizing nature that works brilliantly in an industrial setting. It would be awesome to unleash that for personal work.
If people are using kanban in a Forsterish context, I'm intrigued and hope to hear about it.
If people are using kanban in a Forsterish context, I'm intrigued and hope to hear about it.
April 15, 2012 at 18:00 |
Bernie
Bernie
Kanban (not personal) is a good way of coordinating work among several people. I strongly wish I had an easy way of doing FV while coordinating work with others. It's no good to steal all the cards, put them in your FV, and get around to them "whenever" because people want to know what you're working on and you want to know what they are doing, and we need a shared vision of where we are relative to achieving delivery.
How can I get those advantages while also doing FV?
How can I get those advantages while also doing FV?
April 16, 2012 at 17:58 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan - Why not just enter your active tasks into FV? (leaving the backlog for other people to grab). When you're done, go grab another task from the backlog, move it to the Active / WIP column, and enter it into FV.
I'm about to set up something like that for managing household chores. My son really liked the idea of a kanban. Here is how I plan to integrate it with my own FV list:
- I will write any new items that I see need attention onto my FV list. After a little bit of percolation, I expect I will transfer many of those tasks onto the kanban Backlog column (and off my FV list).
- I will have a recurring task "Do a kanban chore?" on my FV list. When I take action on this, I will go to the kanban, and maybe grab 1 or 2 items from the backlog, sign them, move them to the Active column, and enter them onto my FV list. When I am done working them, I will cross them off FV and update the kanban chart as needed.
- I will have a recurring task "Check kanban status" on my FV list. When I take action on this, I will go look at what everyone else has completed (and make sure it's really completed), and what is currently in progress (and how long it's been in progress), and who has been doing what. This will most likely generate several new items for my FV list, such as "Check how deep N dug the moat" or "Why is M taking so long with the alligator?" or "Make sure to thank L for the great work on the battlements!".
I'm about to set up something like that for managing household chores. My son really liked the idea of a kanban. Here is how I plan to integrate it with my own FV list:
- I will write any new items that I see need attention onto my FV list. After a little bit of percolation, I expect I will transfer many of those tasks onto the kanban Backlog column (and off my FV list).
- I will have a recurring task "Do a kanban chore?" on my FV list. When I take action on this, I will go to the kanban, and maybe grab 1 or 2 items from the backlog, sign them, move them to the Active column, and enter them onto my FV list. When I am done working them, I will cross them off FV and update the kanban chart as needed.
- I will have a recurring task "Check kanban status" on my FV list. When I take action on this, I will go look at what everyone else has completed (and make sure it's really completed), and what is currently in progress (and how long it's been in progress), and who has been doing what. This will most likely generate several new items for my FV list, such as "Check how deep N dug the moat" or "Why is M taking so long with the alligator?" or "Make sure to thank L for the great work on the battlements!".
April 16, 2012 at 21:30 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
Hm. Enter tasks in FV. If they ought to be shared, move to a shared backlog. Have an FV task to check backlog for tasks. If I pick one of those, activate it in the Kanban, and write it into FV. If I finish it in FV, update the Kanban.
Also have an FV task to check the Kanban board for something to do. [There are many states, and hand-offs between people.]
I think that's what you said. Sounds good. Thanks!
Also have an FV task to check the Kanban board for something to do. [There are many states, and hand-offs between people.]
I think that's what you said. Sounds good. Thanks!
April 16, 2012 at 23:15 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
The genius of FV of course lies in the way how to decide which tasks to drag from the left to the middle column on the kanban board.
+like :-)