Limiting WIP - Music City Tech 2021

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Limiting WIP:
Doing Less to Do More
Hunter Tammaro & Julie Wyman
While we wait to get started: Answer a question on Menti!
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Julie Wyman
• 12 years in Agile environments –
Scrum, Kanban, scaled approaches
• Commercial, federal, non-profit
• Local Meetup, regional, and national
conference speaker
• Frequent traveler, Green Bay Packers
fan, and Great British Bake-Off watcher
Agile Coach & Fellow

Hunter
Tammaro
• 9 years working with Agile –
Scrum, Kanban, scaled approaches
• Federal and non-profit
• Local Meetup, regional and national
conference speaker
• Fan of the great outdoors, coffee,
sandwiches and King of the Hill
Agile Coach & Xpert

Work in Progress
(WIP)
Any partly finished product
or materials in an
incomplete step of a process
Completed work in one
process may be WIP to a
higher-order process
WIP does not provide any
value to a customer

First, some theory…

Improved quality
Better problem solving
Fewer errors
Lower stress
Increased productivity

Faster Delivery & Feedback
Value
Returned
4 Parallel Efforts
WIP = 4
Time
1 Parallel Effort
WIP = 1
Time
Value
Returned

Switching Costs
Studying costs associated with multitasking, defined as:
• Two tasks simultaneously
• Switching from one task to another
• Perform two or more tasks in rapid succession
Findings:
• “…mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking”
• Switching time increases as complexity increases and familiarity decreases
• “…complexities involved in understanding the cognitive load imposed by real-life
multi-tasking, when in addition to reconfiguring control settings for a new task,
there is often the need to remember where you got to in the task to which you are
returning and to decide which task to change to, when.”
https://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask

“Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a
few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up…when
people switch repeatedly back and forth between tasks.
Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may
actually take more time in the end and involve more error.
…even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can
cost as much as 40 percent of someone's productive time.”
https://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask

Utilization, WIP and flow

Too much
WIP
Fully utilized, but spend
most of the time waiting
Slow flow through
the system
Slow to respond to change

On a software team
Total Active
Time:
Total Waiting
Time:
Analysis
(2 days)
Development
(5 days)
Testing
(1 day)
Deploy
(1 day)
Waiting for
development (3 days)
Waiting for
testing (6 days)
Waiting to
deploy (4 days)

On a software team
Total Active
Time:
9 days
Total Waiting
Time:
13 days
Analysis
(2 days)
Waiting for
development (3 days)
Development
(5 days)
Waiting for
testing (6 days)
Testing
(1 day)
Waiting to
deploy (4 days)
Deploy
(1 day)

Just enough
WIP
Team members sometimes idle,
but work almost always moving
Rapid flow through the system
Short response time reduces
effect of impediments

If you had a "free" hour of
time during the day,
what would you do?
Menti: 1834 5533

Idle team members?!
• Remove blockers
• Help other team members
• Process improvement
• Address technical debt
• Improve your craft

Slack time as a signal
WIP limits help individuals find ways
to improve the flow of the entire team
Are there issues upstream in the process that can
be resolved?
Are there issues downstream in the process?
Adjust WIP or team composition until
flow is optimized

Slack as a
requirement
WIP limits prevent burnout
and support creative work
Downtime activates the brain’s
default mode network
Take a walk or coffee break!

“…during rest, the default mode network can open
connections between brain regions that are normally too
busy … to talk to each other. This is when true creativity and
insight can happen.”
Andrew Smart, Autopilot
“For all creativity measures, a positive correlation was found
between creative performance and gray matter volume of the
default mode network.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.45

Setting WIP limits
Requirements Ready Analysis Development Validate Done
3 5 3
4
Doing Done Doing Done
Just start…
Observe
Adjust from
there
Cycle Time

Prove it!
“Multitasking is Evil”
https://agileconnection.com/article/multitasking-evil

Round 1
You are assigned three projects.
You will work on the projects one at a time.
• Project 1: Write the numbers 1 -> 15
• Project 2: Write the letters Z -> N
• Project 3: Write the Roman numerals IV -> XVII

Round 1
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
1 - 15 Z - N IV - XVII
1 Z IV
2 Y …
… …
Once we say start:
• Work column-by-
column until you
complete all 3 projects
• Write down the time
you finish your first
and last projects
Set up: On a blank piece
of paper, create column
headers for each project

Round 2
You are assigned three projects.
You will work on the projects all at once.
• Project 1: Write the numbers 20 -> 35
• Project 2: Write the letters Q -> E
• Project 3: Write the Roman numerals V -> XVIII

Round 2
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
20 - 35 Q - E V - XVIII
20 Q V
21 P …
… …
Once we say start:
• Work row-by-row
until you complete all
3 projects
• Write down the time
you finish your first
and last projects
Set up: On a blank piece
of paper, create column
headers for each project

Debrief:
Multitasking is Evil
Menti: 1834 5533

Key Takeaways
Limiting WIP…
• Creates a better-quality
product faster
• Leads to quicker realization of
value and better feedback
• Improves the functioning of the
team by making bottlenecks visible
Remember to…
focus on flow, not utilization

How to
connect
Julie Wyman
julie.wyman@excella.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-wyman/
Hunter Tammaro
hunter.tammaro@excella.com
@htammaro
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmhunter/
Excella
@excellaconsulting
@excellaco

Additional Resources

Links
• Info on switching costs studies from the American Psychological Association
• Huffington Post article with link to multitasking infographic
• Blog posts:
• How to set initial WIP limits
• How Scrum and Kanban approach WIP differently
• Constraints in Scrum and Kanban
• Importance of slack time for creativity
• Books:
• Lean from the Trenches – Henrik Kniberg

“The Name Game”
https://lithespeed.com/the-name-game-a-
multitasking-game-for-agile-teams/

The Name Game
Concept: “Project managers”
compete to have a “developer” write
their name, one letter at a time
• All at once: Direct competition
• Round robin: Developer splits
their time across projects
• One project at a time: Developer
sticks to a WIP limit
See it in action: Video of the game

Discussion
• In which round did you complete your
first project faster?
• Which round took you more time to
complete all three projects?
• In which round did the developer make
more mistakes?
• In which round did the developer feel
more stressed? The project managers?
• Which round felt more like how you work
in real life?

Experiment with
another variation!
• From Henrik Kniberg
• Includes a detailed
facilitation guide:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y
76t4nh8hoq63o3/Multitasking
-Name-Game.docx?dl=0

“Plane Game”
https://growingagile.co.za/2015/02/aeroplane-game/

Practice Round
Compete to make paper airplanes in
teams of six
One team member at each station
One team member times the construction
of the colored plane
One team member times the entire round

Round 1
Work as fast as you can,
in a first-in-first-out basis
After 10 planes are completed and tested,
use the worksheet to record:
• The time to make all 10 planes
• The time to make the colored plane
• The number of incomplete planes
• in progress

Round 2
This time, work with a
WIP limit of 1 per station
E.g., Station 1 can’t start on the next plane
until Station 2 takes their sheet
After 10 planes are completed and tested, use
the worksheet to record:
• The time to make all 10 planes
• The time to make the colored plane
• The number of incomplete planes
in progress

• In which round did you
complete all 10 planes faster?
• Which round took your team
more time to make the
colored plane?
• In which round was there
more waste?
Discussion
• In which round did you feel
more stressed?
• Which round felt more like
how you work in real life?

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Limiting WIP - Music City Tech 2021

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