There are many techniques to visualize your work. Obviously, our most popular is Personal Kanban. The way the human brain is constructed, we’re very sensitive to the content of visual information, and we quickly assimilate it. Just walking down the street, we’re exposed to different buildings with different uses and different qualities. We take this information in stride, so to speak. But if we want to see something less visual, like a list, we have to stop and read it carefully and then interpret it.
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When we don’t visualize our work (i.e., turn it into something like a map or the real world), we can’t see what we’re doing. We can’t immediately answer these nine key questions.
1. What is being built?
In knowledge work, the very thing we’re building spends most of its time in conception. We’re using our minds to do the work. As I type this, sitting at a Starbucks in Norway, the entire column is in my head, but the other coffee customers have no idea what I am doing. Neither do my colleagues back in the states. When this column is done, everyone will know what was built but not what has been done to build it.
Visual controls show us what is being done. If I see a kanban note that Tonianne has placed that says “Research neuroscience WRT stress and work,” I can immediately show her articles I've read. If I wait until she gives me a finished product, it’s too late.
2. Who is currently working?
Who is actually working right now? This information isn’t really necessary for oversight because odds are everyone is working—and working pretty hard. With this question we want to know who is currently busy and who isn’t for two key reasons: trust and collaboration. Unfortunately, trust fades when people become overworked. We mistake the few minutes where someone gets up to take a break as what they’re doing all the time. Trust erodes because we can’t look at something that allows us to think, “Yes, it’s OK; they’re still working away.”
If we want to collaborate with someone, understanding what his current workload is gives us a good indication when we can impose ourselves on him. If I’m in the middle of a deep thought, and you come and interrupt me with an entirely different context, I then context-switch, losing valuable time and energy. (At the moment, someone is sending me messages via IM, and I’m noticing them—that’s been enough to derail this paragraph several times.) On the other hand, if I’m busy with a task, and you say to me, “Jim, when you are done with that task or take a break, I need some time with you,” that is a minimal interruption. I can say, “Sure,” and catch you when I’m done.
3. Who is currently idle?
Noticing idle workers seems to be the opposite of question No. 2, but it’s actually quite different. Idle workers (people with no tasks at all) can be a sign of a workflow issue. Work is likely stuck somewhere upstream, leaving these workers waiting for new work.
4. What is stuck?
Stuck notes are absurdly easy to see on a kanban board. Something that dwells in a column longer than is comfortable (i.e., much sooner than before it becomes a problem) are dealt with through discussion, teamwork, or simply killing the task. Being able to quickly and easily see that a note isn’t moving is a good way to increase effectiveness. With no visualization, tasks can and do become stuck for months.
5. Who needs help?
From time to time, we’ll all get that stuck task—the problem that seems like it has an easy solution, but we spin and spin on it. In Cynefin these tasks are either categorized as highly complicated (outside your expertise) or complex (solution is possible but yet unknown). These tasks happen. When they do, we tend to withdraw, thinking we need to solve the problem ourselves. What really is needed, however, is teamwork. These problems require multiple minds or outside sources to solve.
6. Who is overloaded?
Overload is extremely common, but we don’t know it because we can’t see what we’re doing. We don’t know what our real workload is. Visualizing work quickly shows who has too much work right now. When this is noticed, we can help these people by either slowing the rate at which they receive work, or helping them move the work out of their backlog.
7. When can I expect to see something?
Estimating without visualizing is like steering a car with your eyes closed. When we view our work through a kanban board we can measure completion rates of actual work. Work estimation is problematic at an individual task level. We don’t know if we will be interrupted, if other work will take precedence, or if we’ll run into one of those tasks from question No. 5. When work items are viewed in the aggregate, they become much more predictable. Statistical forecasting beats estimation every time. With a flow-based visualization, we can measure cycle time, throughput, and lead time to provide much more reliable responses.
8. What have we finished?
Seeing what you have finished and remembering it is vital. Our brains color our memory, make us forget what we’ve completed, and reward focusing on the what happened most recently. We need to have a visual record of what we’ve done, or we’ll actively forget both the work and its context. This makes it impossible to learn and improve.
9. What’s coming next?
Knowing about work that is approaching helps us do our work right now. We know what context the current work will fit into, how it might be augmented, and what “done” might look like. If we have an infinite amount of time to complete a task, “done” will look very different than if we have, say, an hour. Seeing work as it’s coming up allows us to better plan our time and appreciate the workload that is impending.
First published March 25, 2015, on the Modus Cooperandi blog.
Comments
Insert between Item #8 and 9
I think or feel that something is missing from your definition.
I think you need one more item between #8 and #9. Call it Operational Definition. It will tell you how to decide when something is “done” or is ready for a next step in the process. Deming defined an operational definition as agreement by all interested parties that allows them to do “business.” That used to draw a lot of questions in his four day seminars. So, he gave this more precise definition. I think it is loosely based on the scientific method. Deming would probably attribute it to Walter Shewhart.
Item #1 is a set of criteria upon which or with which all interested parties can agree. This allows them to “Do business” or carry on through the process. Deming used the example of “What is 50% Wool and 50% Cotton?”
Item #2 is a test of that criterion or criteria which quantifiably determines or excludes membership in the group or class defined in #1. Again, all parties agree on the test and the results produce the intended outcome. Again, Deming’s example would ask if half the material were all cotton and the other half were all wool then where would the test sample be obtained? Now, assume the wool and cotton are thoroughly mixed. A one inch square is cut from the material and destructively tested to determine its components. Is 0.499999% sufficient for membership? Or does it have to be 0.50000009%? These numbers would be predefined.
Item #3 is a decision rule or set of rules which are used in conjunction with #1 and #2 to determine or exclude membership into the group or class. As an example the rule might be, “If the results of 5 tests of the material obtained randomly from five different areas of the material show between 0.49999999 and 0.50000001 wool then the material is 50% wool and 50% cotton.
This used the specs and requirements of a product or system or service, and included a “Test Oracle” against which the sample results could be compared. If the sample met the criteria then the decision rule would classify it’s membership into the group or class. I realize that the methods and language of Hypothesis Testing should be used.
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