personal kanban - less guilt more finishing (digital pm summit 2014)

Ready Doing Done

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

PERSONAL KANBANLess Guilt - More Finishing

Dave Prior DPM Symposium 2014

Ready Doing Done

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

!!

I had stuff to do…

and I’m all like…

so they put me in charge of making sure other people have stuff to do

and I’m trying to be all like…

but I’m really like…

and I end up like…

AND THEN…

Ready Doing Done

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

THERE ARE ONLY 2 RULES TO PERSONAL KANBAN

rule #1: Visualize your work

STEP 1: MAP YOUR WORKFLOW

Create your own, or use the example that has been provided

BACKLOG

BLOCKED

DOING DONEREADY

NEW

DAILY

STEP 2: FILL YOUR BACKLOG

Write down all the stuff you need to get done today.

One item per post-it.

Put them in the backlog column.

WARNING!!If you can’t fit all your stuff into that little backlog box. Please become as irritated as possible.

If you are irritated enough, decide if you want to do something to fix it.

rule #2: Limit your work in progress (WIP)

There is a limit to how much you can do at one time. !

There is also a limit to how much you can do in a single day.

To figure out how to go faster

Figure out what is making you slow

STEP 3: CREATE A WIP LIMIT FOR YOUR READY AND DOING COLUMNS

Just get started

Pay Attention

You can change it later (if you still want to)

STEP 4: BE HONEST, KEEP NOTES

• Your board should reflect what is happening. (Not what you want to happen.)

• It’s a good idea to keep notes on what you observe each day.

Focus more on learning about how you work… and the tasks will take care of themselves

Ready Doing Done

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

SIMPLE, NOT EASYThere are only 2 rules… when you break them, figure out why you needed to do that

MAKING IT WORK

Discipline Of Practice

Mindfulness

An Empirical Approach

DISCIPLINE OF PRACTICE

Have the discipline to take responsibility for how you choose to work

MINDFULNESS

Be mindful about how you work and why you make different choices

If your board reflects what you want to happen, as opposed to what is happening, why?

When you don’t follow the rules figure out why

EMPIRICAL APPROACH

When you observe yourself not following the rules, form hypothesis and test your theories

It’s a good idea to have someone act as your coach or accountability partner

Boz

Ready Doing Done

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

You may find that you kinda suck

And then you are going to have to do something about it

WHY I DID THIS

• To learn how Personal Kanban works and how it is different from Kanban.

• To figure out if I could actually do it

MY SET UP

• Each experiment lasted 2 weeks and ended with a retrospective and a blog post

• I got a coach and set up calls every two weeks

• He asked me to use TrackYourHappiness.org

How I felt when I started doing all these experiments

How I felt when I saw what they had to tell me.

TEN MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I HAVE LEARNED USING PERSONAL KANBAN

1. My work practices are far more dysfunctional than I realized (I’m a frigging mess)

4. Some waste may be required

3. Learn to cope with the velvet rope

5. Moving stuff across the board is not the most important thing

2. I am the architect of my demise and the root cause of my failure to get stuff done

TEN MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I HAVE LEARNED USING PERSONAL KANBAN

6. There is no separation between work life and personal life (at least for me)

7. Naps are awesome

8. Downtime is unavoidable and that is not a bad thing

9. I am an insanely fortunate person

10. Learning to hack yourself is the greatest way to combat the Mark Inside

Ready Doing Done

!

My Blog Posts http://tinyurl.com/DPM-PK-Index !

Recommended Books on PK Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry A Factory of One by Dan Markovitz Why Limit WIP - by Jim Benson Why Plans Fail - by Jim Benson

Backstory

Getting Started

Making It Work

Learning

Dave Prior!dprior@bigvisible.com!Blog: drunkenpm.blogger.com!Twitter: @mrsungo!Skype: mrsungo!!

www.bigvisible.com