To maximize the amount of work done, maximize the amount of work not done

To maximize the amount of work done, maximize the amount of work not done

To maximize the amount of work done, maximize the amount of work not done.

Huh! 

You're in the plate-spinning business. Would you prefer to spin your optimal number of plates or run ragged, trying to stop plates from falling on the floor?

Focus, finish, and remember to feed the system at the right time. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but the range of throughput is the range of capacity in your system. If you deliver two to five plates per hour, that's your replenishment capacity.

You're not in the plate-spinning business, but you may get the point. Knowledge work is far more entangled and messy. Keep an eye on the relative elapsed time since (still unfinished) items started; it's known as work item age. Monitor total item age trends. There is a sweet spot range for total work time age and total work in progress.

An excellent visual way to monitor work item age is to treat a board like a work item aging chart. The vertical axis should be work item age (but perhaps use an elongating scale, e.g., days, weeks, months, or quarters), and the horizontal axis should represent the progressive states in the process.

Avoid fake items, items that in and of themselves do not have the potential to deliver value. 

Older items get older. Lower elapsed times to improve the throughput of potentially valuable items. Finish items (that includes canceling no longer worthwhile items).

Unless you have hard evidence of an item's potential worthwhileness, swarm on relatively oldest items and blocked items—red, amber, and high green.

To avoid a feature factory, I prefer the finished point to be after value realization has been checked, reworked, and tweaked.

I'm oversimplifying again, but generally speaking, items are quicker to complete when they stay in a backlog. Start everything, and everything takes forever to finish.

Focus, finish, and feed. Slack time is your friend.

 

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