At the Core of Agile. Limited WIP.
Agile is everywhere, and anything nowadays – it seems.
At the core it’s about limiting your Work-in-Progress (WIP). And, it’s not “just fumbling forward without a plan”.
Let’s take a look at the differences between “robust”, “lean”, and “agile”. And, then get you started in your everyday life, if it suits your challenge.
A biased introduction.
Take a look at the illustrations, I used in an introductory course for “Design Thinking & Agile Implementation”. The participants come from IT, pharma, design studios, construction companies, etc. Many of them well-seasoned, with project-experience.
We keep it simple.
We start with a short claim like “Stick to the Plan” (Robust).
As this approach invests a lot of energy in the beginning to have a rock-solid plan to be executed. No surprises, please.
Then we look at the primary Objective.
For example “Use Employees’ Potential optimally” (Lean).
As this approach never ends to strive for perfection by setting up a continuous trail of PDCA-experiments, guided by great lean leaders.
And, we discuss when we’re finished – when “Time or Resources are used up” (Agile).
As this approach focusses on gaining insight after every sprint (iteration) to improve output, as well as team performance.
In blue text next to it, I added some buzz words.
Limited Work in Progress
When originally tasked to give an introduction about Agile to such a diverse group, I turned to Scrum and the description of the ways to work in teams, stand-ups, sprints, burn-down-charts, etc.
But, it can be over-whelming, and if you’re not from or into IT or software development, difficult to relate to quickly.
So, I decided to explain the “concept” of Limited WIP.
The idea of working in a small batch of tasks.
One after the other for a short period of time, for example a week. (in Scrum-speak: sprints).
It turned out to be a really suitable entry-point – to then take it from there, also being able to take into account what the participants brought to the table.
Keep the number of tasks low.
Start and complete each task without interruption.
You are not allowed to exchange tasks you (also as a team) have committed to during this sprint.
Review the task quality at the end of the sprint, to sign-off with your client, accept changes; and reflect your team’s performance and improve.
We used the ready-to-use-template you can find to download in “Agile@home. Sticky in the Kitchen.” to get started with Agile.
Manage your boss!
I have had participants go back to work the next day, and started managing their boss with it.
A great use case!
PS: I manage this blog with a backlog. (More on “how to” you find here.)
PPS: And, if you want to dig in deeper into the necessary mindset, you can read my post “Complex or Complicated. The Rubik’s Cube.” Which has led to a little controversy when I posted it to the Scrum group on LinkedIn – and is the most visited post on my blog.
