10
votes
Accepted
Does a user story need to be small and why, when using Kanban
In a word: feedback.
Whether you’re coaching a soccer team, flying a drone, planning a city, or writing a dissertation, the sooner you can get feedback, make adjustments, and get more feedback, the ...
9
votes
Accepted
What to do when WIP limits must be broken?
Embrace Change but Keep Costs Visible
"What happens when we're at our WIP limit and 'do it now' work crops up?"
If you've structured your process with spare capacity, rather than striving for 100% ...
- 47.8k
7
votes
Who can change WIP limit in DoW when urgent work emerges?
There is no clear indicator this question belongs to Sprint Backlog only.
I believe this is wrong.
The urgency of the work, to me, implies that it cannot wait until the next Sprint. The team must ...
- 17.7k
6
votes
What is the definition of Work in Progress
To contribute and also help move the discussion forward, let's first start with the definition of WIP:
WIP is the number of task items that a team is currently working on.
When rolling out a new ...
- 338
6
votes
When (if at all) is it okay to break the WIP limit?
Is this reasonable?
In my personal experience the answer to that is no. WIP limits exist for a number of very good reasons, one of which is to identify bottlenecks such as that which you have ...
- 473
4
votes
Who can change WIP limit in DoW when urgent work emerges?
Update: This Answer assumes, incorrectly, that by WIP the OP meant Sprint capacity (a limit on how much work can be included in a Sprint), not Kanban WIP limits (a limit on how much work can exist in ...
- 14.7k
3
votes
Accepted
How is Little's Law applied in Kanban?
Little's Law is most commonly used to explain why the practices in Kanban exist. As you point out, you can just calculate the average cycle time and don't need Little's Law to tell you what it is.
...
- 16.7k
3
votes
What to do when WIP limits must be broken?
If you have to exceed the limits for some reason, increase the limits, get the work done and then decrease them again. It is easier to remember the rule "Never exceed limits" than "Sometimes it's okay"...
- 212
3
votes
What to do when WIP limits must be broken?
First let us consider why work in progress is limited. Limiting WIP is needed in order to establish a self-regulated system that balances capacity and demand throughout the value delivery stream.
...
- 136
2
votes
Accepted
Secondary team block primary team due to lack of quality-driven development and WIP limits
The fact that Team A uses Kanban and Team B uses Scrum is probably incidental to the situation. Fundamentally, the two teams have a different attitude towards quality of their work and its impact on ...
- 2,115
2
votes
Atlassian Jira Dashboard - List Of Users' Most Recent Work Log Record
Jira Activity stream has also a table view, which looks similar to what you requested:
To get that, Add Gadget to your Jira Dashboard and then use toolbar (seen on my screenshot) within the "Activity ...
- 124
2
votes
Atlassian Jira Dashboard - List Of Users' Most Recent Work Log Record
You can use the Jira Activity Stream gadget
Yes, Jira has a built-in gadget to do this. It is the Activity Stream gadget:
You can add this gadget to your Dashboard and select all the projects that ...
- 10.9k
2
votes
Atlassian Jira Dashboard - List Of Users' Most Recent Work Log Record
I would take a look at the Jira tempo plugin, it will solve all your time tracking and recording issues. We also combined it with the worklog assistant, since not everyone likes to book hours, this ...
- 5,453
2
votes
When (if at all) is it okay to break the WIP limit?
You could add a column without WIP Limit in front of the test column.
Example for columns TODO | Implementation | Implementation Done | Test | Done
The item would then rest in Implementation Done ...
- 21
2
votes
When (if at all) is it okay to break the WIP limit?
Adding a "Waiting on Hardware" zone at the bottom of your Testing column could be a workable approach. It would allow you keep you WIP limit as a firm limit while still showing the backlog in the ...
- 2,549
2
votes
WIP Limits broken by low-priority Stories - What to do?
I have found that temporary fixes (like ignoring low-priority stories) often end up being long-lived.
Better to get your board to a good place first, then work to optimise the WIP limits.
The ...
- 18.4k
2
votes
Why is "limiting Work In Progress" the cornerstone of Kanban?
Work in Progress is a critical part of Kanban because of Little's Law. You are welcome to read more about it, but the short version is it shows a direct relationship between throughput, response time, ...
- 16.7k
2
votes
Why is "limiting Work In Progress" the cornerstone of Kanban?
Limiting work in progress is a cornerstone of Kanban because:
It helps to emphasise that Kanban is a 'pull' process
It is often a very effective way to improve the throughput of work for a team
It is ...
- 18.4k
2
votes
What is the definition of Work in Progress
The definition of Work in Progress (WIP) is: Work that has been started, but not yet finished.
The reason why we want WIP to be minimized are:
To help the development team to focus and minimize ...
- 10.9k
2
votes
Kanban Buffers and Queues
To effectively answer this, we have to remember that the purpose of a Kanban board is to visualize the flow of work. It is not quite as 1-to-1 as each column being a step of work, but that's a good ...
- 16.7k
1
vote
Integrating Part Time Workers (Students/Interns) into a Kanban System
The existing Answers are good, I just wanted to add something on top of them.
As you're doing Scrumban, I am assuming/hoping that you are performing the Scrum event known as the Retrospective (often ...
- 14.7k
1
vote
Integrating Part Time Workers (Students/Interns) into a Kanban System
I would like to challenge your assumption that this has anything to do with the WIP-Limit.
Lets say you have 5 full time developers and 2 part time developers. And for starters, you set the WIP limit ...
- 7,650
1
vote
Integrating Part Time Workers (Students/Interns) into a Kanban System
I believe there's a simple solution: All Part timers must pair program with full-time developers...all the time. But that seems heavy handed?
I have worked with teams that pair on all work and it has ...
- 18.4k
1
vote
Accepted
That is throughput and how is it calculated?
Throughput in Kanban refers to the amount of work delivered over a certain period. No matter how many work items your team has in progress, this metric ignores anything unfinished.
Consider a ...
- 309
1
vote
Accepted
Why is "limiting Work In Progress" the cornerstone of Kanban?
Kanban originated in the manufacturing industry
In the manufacturing industry excess Work in Progress (WIP) has many disadvantages:
High inventory carrying costs
Risk of obsoletion
Risk of dead ...
- 10.9k
1
vote
Why is "limiting Work In Progress" the cornerstone of Kanban?
I believe the following quote is clear:
Limiting WIP is the cornerstone of Kanban. Limiting work-in-progress
implies that a pull system is implemented. Put limits on columns in
which work is ...
- 309
1
vote
Who can change WIP limit in DoW when urgent work emerges?
My answer would be
No one, as 'High Priority' work is not a valid reason for changing the WIP during the Sprint.
The WIP limit, as in the number of tickets that can be in a particular status of ...
- 2,650
1
vote
Who can change WIP limit in DoW when urgent work emerges?
My other Answer answers a different question that the OP has clarified is not what was intended to be asked. I'm leaving it for posterity. This Answer addresses changing the Kanban WIP limits during a ...
- 14.7k
1
vote
Does a user story need to be small and why, when using Kanban
Many of your ideas are based on faulty assumptions.
S meaning small enough to fit into iteration which also does not apply to Kanban
and
The rule of thumb is generally that a story should move ...
- 17.7k
1
vote
What is the process for deciding WIP limits for each column in a team's kanban board?
Remember that one of the Kanban principles is "start where you are". So, a good way to determine the initial WIP limits is to just count how many tickets currently are in the column, or how many you ...
- 11
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