I found that using a Kanban Board saved my sanity and gave me a very welcome surprise. As the world came to a screeching halt and locked down, we all rushed to shelter at home and figure out how to work remotely. What a crazy time! It is filled with uncertainty, new challenges, disrupted routines, and a realization that perhaps we had taken much for granted.
Best Intentions
Being the resilient people we are, we immediately turned our attention to how we can make this a time of great productivity. I can exercise in the morning, since I’m not stuck in traffic. I have time in the evening to work on my novel or other projects. Whether we were still working or perhaps one of the 40 million who lost their jobs, we resolved to make the most of this time.
Reality
Okay, so that was Instagram. The reality is that many were juggling a whole host of new challenges. Simple tasks, like grocery shopping, became exhausting chores. Throughout this time, many people have reported having trouble sleeping, being in a “fog” or “funk,” and having a good deal of difficulty focusing. Our best laid plans quickly derailed, leaving many of us feeling guilty and asking, “What’s wrong with me?” “Why am I not getting more done?” I know I certainly felt this way.
A Recipe for Kanban
Juggling creates challenges with focus. Add to that uncertainty, a dynamic environment, (Will I find toilet paper this week?), fires of the day leaving unfinished work drains productivity like sand through a sieve. Combine this with physical and emotional exhaustion it’s no wonder our best laid plans go awry.
We turn to Kanban to:
- Understand and improve our flow of value
- Highlight bottlenecks
- Focus on finishing
- Agree when we start work
- Agree work is done
Personal Kanban Save
Like other agile enthusiasts, at the outset, I created my own personal Kanban board. It is low-tech —stickies on my refrigerator. By doing this, I held myself accountable for completing work. I delighted in the satisfaction of moving things to “done.” This simple act of making my work transparent cleared out a lot of my fog-head and helped me prioritize. I was able to reprioritize, so I was focusing on the most important work, giving me the freedom to adapt to a dynamic situation and all it’s outside forces. Establishing a work-in-progress (WIP) limit kept me focused. Moving things to the Done column, gave me small reasons to celebrate. (I had a blow-out when I moved “Clean Garage” to Done. That one took some swarming!).
Kanban Surprise
One thing that really surprised me, springing from using a personal Kanban board, was how much attention my husband was paying to the board. He noticed how the stickies were moving across the board. If I moved stickies to Done, he gave me a celebratory, “Woohoo!” If not much moved, he knew it was likely a bad day. He would gently check-in with me to see if I was okay and if he could support me. That usually consisted of a “Don’t beat yourself up” comment. He didn’t monitor how much work I did. His looking at the board came from a genuine desire to understand how I was coping and to know how he could help. Though he doesn’t work in this industry, his was the best and most authentic example of a Servant Leader mindset I have ever seen. Agile Leaders, be like Mike!