If the title grabbed your attention it’s likely because ‘slowing down to speed up’ is counter intuitive to what we learn in school, the business world, and life in general. I’ve seen many managers add work to the pile “to ensure they don’t run out of work to do”. Unfortunately this is the worst thing you can do, as much like cars merging at a bottleneck of the highway during rush hour the high volume actually causes significant back-ups.
During this workshop we will start with a simulation game where a development team will be creating a product according to customer specs!Through a refinement of the exercise we will demonstrate the impact of too much work in the system, identifying the bottlenecks, and strategies for improving the flow of work. Over the course of 3 rounds of the game, participants will come away with an understanding of the basic mechanics and concepts behind Kanban. More importantly participants will come away with a better understanding of the nature of work, and the impact our behaviours have on the outcome.
Too many teams do not make great decisions regarding the work they agree to take on. Unfortunately this can often result in poor performance, which is often not talked about. In fact many people claim to be Agile, when all they’ve done is adopted the Scrum methodology. Most management methodologies can focus on process or product. Kanban focuses on the flow of work, making it visible and providing a platform for organizational improvement. Through the use of these very simple tools you can significantly improve the results on your projects! Even if you don’t adopt Kanban you will find the principles and concepts useful in guiding you in any project, and how you manage the work you and others do.