Going Beyond WIP Limits for Ever-Higher Organizational Performance

GOING BEYOND WIP LIMITS
FOR EVER-HIGHER ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

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22 February 2017
GOING BEYOND WIP LIMITS FOR EVER-HIGHER
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
Presented by Michael Hannan, PMP, TOC Jonah
Founder & Principal Consultant, Fortezza Consulting

4
MY PROMISE TO YOU FOR THIS SESSION:
Inspire and excite you on the topic of organizational performance improvement.
MY WILD-EYED STRETCH GOAL FOR THIS SESSION:
Help you maximize your impact as leaders, so that you might advance humankind through
the pursuit of dramatically higher levels of organizational performance.
Copyright © 2017 Fortezza Consulting, LLC

On September 11, 2001, the largest sealift rescue initiative in the history
of humankind was carried out, rescuing over 35 times more people per
hour than the next largest — the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk.
Youtube search “9-11 Boatlift”
Also check out a keynote presentation I gave on this—go
to www.FortezzaConsulting.com/videos (It’s the
“Accelerate Results” conference video.)
What do these four things have in common?
1.
= 500 people
The 9-11 rescue
throughput
5Copyright © 2017 Fortezza Consulting, LLC
Dunkirk’s
rescue
throughput

In the past 10 years, a major pharmaceutical company found a way to
double the number of life-saving drugs it brought to market, with no
increase in cost.
2.

In the span of just a few years, Amazon went from deploying new
software < 10 times a day to deploying new software more than
7,000 times a day.3.
= 10 times a day

In its first 8 years, SpaceX made space launches 5x less costly,
and in the next 8 years, expects to make them 100x less costly.
4.
Cost per lb to Low-earth Orbit

Poll: What do these four things have in common?

 Step 1: Start with unbridled enthusiasm for unlimited upside
 Step 2: Identify the most essential building block for dramatic
performance improvement
 Step 3: Craft a disciplined approach based on that building block
 Step 4: Challenge conventional wisdom
 Step 5: Start asking “How might we…”
Logical progression of webinar
…and don’t ever stop

STEP 2:
IDENTIFY THE MOST ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCK
FOR DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT

STEP 2: Task-switching game
Round #1 Round #2

datapoints
First round results
with task switching
Second round
results with
focus
time to complete
Almost twice as fast!
2σ ~ 90% 2σ ~ 60%
STEP 2: Typical game results

2x 3x 4x 6x
8x 12x
STEP 2: If simple tasks see a 2x improvement…

 Block off calendar time
 Turn off Outlook pop-up
notifications
 Put your phone on silent
 Turn on a “heads down”
auto-reply email
 Put a sign on your door
 Work from home, and/or
work non-standard hours
 USB lights
STEP 2: A few simple ways to drive single-tasking

STEP 3:
CRAFT A DISCIPLINED APPROACH
BASED ON THAT BUILDING BLOCK

Lean/Kanban
− Visualizing the actual flow of work is critical to identify
impediments and to experiment with improvements
− Enabling the system to “pull” work improves flow while
empowering teams
− Minimizing batch sizes—ideally down to “single-piece flow”
— can generate impressive flow improvements
− Keeping “work in progress” (WIP) within capacity is key to
maximizing flow
STEP 3: Craft a disciplined approach

Theory of Constraints, Psychology
– Single-tasking is a highly effective way to minimize lead
times for human tasks
– Maximizing flow across a complex organization (system)
can only be done once the system constraint is identified

Agile/Scrum, Psychology
− The team can find ways to improve flow more effectively
than any single member
− The team is much more motivated when working under a
disciplined framework designed to foster team autonomy

Number of Task
Owners
8
Ensure that this number…
6
…is never higher than this
number
STEP 3: Is single-tasking actually happening?

Previous
productivity
level
Impediments; lapses
in single-tasking
Improved single-task
discipline
Over
2X!
2 months
STEP 3: 700-person IT projects organization
tasks
summary cumulative flow diagram

STEP 4:
CHALLENGE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

 Conventional wisdom: Impose single-tasking with WIP limits on individual users.
STEP 4: Challenge conventional wisdom

 Better idea: Allow the team to experiment with different “Team WIP Targets.”

Individual/Team
WIP Limits
• Limiting WIP is usually a great first
step for improving flow
• “I’ve set a limit on each of you, and
you all must comply!”
• Some workers feel incentivized to
“game the system”
• Not as conducive to a “How might
we…?” culture
Team WIP Targets
Based on Single-Tasking
• Encourages a target based on
single-task behavior
• Allows total flexibility for teaming up
on tasks
• If you’re way over or under target,
the team can see it and explore
why
• Fosters experimentation
• “We trust you, and want to help you
pursue ever-higher levels of team
performance”
STEP 4: WIP limits vs WIP targets

 Can speed up any project or operation and be used with any
methodology
 Can complement key characteristics of Agile:
◦ Self-organized Scrum Teams, user stories, story points, backlogs,
burndown charts, retrospectives, customer transparency, scope
buffering, and more
◦ Offers an option to replace time-boxed sprints with single-piece flow to
improve velocity and predictability of execution
 Speed improvements in real-world environments have ranged from 30%
to 300%
The Focus-and-Flowtm Method

 Can certainly take a “copy/paste” approach to propagate across teams,
with leadership reinforcement of the “How might we…?” culture
 For project-centric organizations, elevate the application of WIP Targets
from the task level to the project level
◦ For Agile portfolios already using scaled approaches like SAFe, can
simply enhance with “Project-level WIP Targets,” and experiment with
what target yields the highest throughput of project completions
◦ For a more universally applicable approach designed for maximum
throughput, I recommend Critical Chain Project Management
(CCPM), which calls for staggering projects according to the capacity
of the most constrained resource type
How to scale this approach

 Fortezza Consulting is offering new customers a “30/30” guarantee:
◦ Guaranteed 30% speed improvement in 30 days or less, for teams
up to 30 people in size
 Happy to craft a larger-scale approach—with a similar guarantee—
for enterprises looking for organization-wide implementation
◦ Consulting and coaching paired with your 30-day free trial of LeanKit
◦ Check out details at http://www.FortezzaConsulting.com/30-30/
 Simply schedule a 30-min call with me by going to
http://www.FortezzaConsulting.com/appointments/
Getting started

 Fortezza Consulting resources
◦ Blog
www.FortezzaConsulting.com/blog
◦ Email subscription
www.FortezzaConsulting.com/stay-connected
◦ Book (Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover)
www.FortezzaConsulting.com/new-book
 LeanKit resources
◦ Blog (LeanKit.com/blog)
◦ Learning Center (LeanKit.com/learn/kanban)
Where can I learn more

Q&A
 For a team of 20 paired programmers, are you saying they should just pick a
Team WIP Target of 10?
 With so many teams each having so much team autonomy, how would you
scale this across a large organization with any level of consistency?
 Aside from telling my teams “Set your WIP so low it feels kind of painful,” how
should I help them get started with limiting and targeting WIP?
 How do I get my team’s buy-in?
 How do we limit/target WIP when we are working cross-functionally?

Going Beyond WIP Limits for Ever-Higher Organizational Performance

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