Complex Lives Pt 2: Visualizing Real Work

In part one of Complex Lives, we set a Future in Progress (FIP) limit for Jessica, a busy and active single mom. Her goals were overwhelming her ability to get things done. So we reigned them in by giving her a FIP limit.That was step one.Step two is visualizing that FIP. Jessica was concerned because her triathlon regimen included both repetitive and non-repetitive tasks. She needed to consume the right amount of calories, be sure to take her meds, and of course work out. This would equate to three repetitive, monotonous tickets per day in Ready –> Doing –> Done.Many tickets. Too little real information.Getting the work done for the triathlon was of course, important, but Personal Kanban is built to be an information radiator. What was the real information she needed?  This turned out to be:

1. what workouts did I do

2. when did I do them

3. did my caloric intake match the workouts

4. did I take my meds and, most important

5. am I being consistent or missing anything?

IMG00658-20100404-1347

25408_383714988323_260566503323_3735421_7176716_n

So here we see Jessica’s board. She just had a little white board, so we worked with the walls in her home. Backlog and Done are both off the board (on the walls where the board hung). Her spontaneous tasks still work through a Ready –> Doing –> Done value stream, those tasks were color coded between work, family, studying and other tasks.  But there’s more here than that.There are two additional “swim lanes” on this board. A swim lane is another value stream or dedicated horizontal lane on our board for special tasks.The first swim lane is Triathlon Training. We have several metrics here:Diet: each day net calories, water, and meds are measured. Calories are a number, meds and water are a checkmark for done.Workout: Type, severity, and subjective well being are noted here. “20” is a 20 minute cardio. On Wednesday you can see “10 mile ride.” E,M,H are easy, medium and hard workouts. Smilies measure how Jessica subjectively felt about the workout.She can then take these metrics and not only see adherence and progress, but also plan for future workouts.The second swim lane is Jessica Studying for her Section 65 Certification. She told me that she studies by creating a study plan for herself, studying, and then testing herself on what she just did. So we set up a swim lane with a WIP of one. At any point, she can only be working on one module.So with this, we took Jessica’s overwhelming combination of things in progress and goals and made them visible and actionable. Take the time to critically look at the different projects you have in flight. In the end, you want to get the work done, but your real aim is to understand what you’re doing. To get those projects done right, Jessica needed some dedicated swim lanes.I’m willing to bet she’s not alone.

Complex Lives Pt 1: Jessica’s Future In Progress

Ready –> Doing –> DoneLife presents us with opportunities, and so we've no choice but to take on concurrent projects. Unfortunately they don’t always conform to that simple Ready –> Doing –> Done value stream.Last month I was in San Francisco giving lectures on Personal Kanban at Stanford and Keller. My host for the trip was my good friend Jessica. Jessica is a single mom. She  has two jobs on opposite ends of the Bay. She  is studying for her financial advisor certification. She is training for a triathlon.Jessica has a lot to keep track of.As a mathematician and an expert in intangible assets, it was not a big leap for Jessica to recognize: (1) she had so much on her plate that busting her WIP limit was guaranteed, and (2) making money was only one asset out of many she had to devote time to.So on a sunny Sunday morning at a coffee shop, the simple question “Do you want to talk a little about your Personal Kanban” quickly turned into a 2.5 hour conversation. We discussed what she valued, what her goals were.It soon became clear that Jessica is not simply goal-oriented, she's a goal-collector. So we needed to get that under control. Goals are awesome, but when they start generating more tasks than we can handle – they need to be tamed.We agreed she needed more than a WIP Limit – she needed a FIP limit. Future In Progress. She had the triathlon, the certification, a book she wanted to write, and more. It made sense to pick two and (no pun intended) run with them. The triathlon enforced health and working out, so we couldn’t say no to that. The certification was immediately necessary for her job and short-term. So that too was obvious. The others, went into the FIP queue.Jessica now had a FIP limit of two.

Personal Kanban Interviews on the Business 901 Podcast

PersonalKanbanAvatar2

Last month, I had the good fortune to be on Joe Dager's Business 901 Podcast.  The topic, of course, was Personal Kanban.Joe edited the conversation into two parts which can be found below:Part 1

Powered by Podbean.com

Part 2

Powered by Podbean.com

Announcing the Launch of iKan, the Personal Kanban iPhone App

You asked for it, and we listened. Today we are proud to announce the launch of the first Personal Kanban iPhone app, iKan.When we set out to build it, we decided to focus on a few key things:1. Small Screen Many Tasks -  We wanted to make the best use of the screen real estate on the iPhone, so we built the app vertically.2. KISS - We wanted the initial release to be extremely basic. In future updates we will respond to YOUR needs, and additional features will be based on YOUR input. So please keep us posted as to the direction you'd like to see iKan take. We already have a long list of upgrades in our pipeline, but are primarily interested in how you are actually using the app.3. Use Your Data - In the first version, we have had importation from Zen.  (Zen, unfortunately, never let you write data back from the API. In one of their updates, the import also ceased to function.).4. Start with Basics then Build to Suit - Each iKan starts with an entry-level Personal Kanban value stream with Ready / Doing / Done sections. You can however, create your own column headings and set your own WIP limits.In the coming weeks, we'll have a series of short tutorial videos for iKan - so stay tuned!Special thanks to Jeremy Lightsmith, Gary Bernhardt and Corey Ladas who were all vital in making iKan a reality.Get your copy of iKan at the iTunes Store.NOTE: If you want to help create an Android app, talk to us!

Work / Life Balance

I've been surprised lately by the number of people asking me about work/life balance. We feel we are undervaluing our family ties, our personal goals, our community involvement, our hobbies and our art. Oftentimes our work makes us feel isolated - we feel alone and seek meaning in our lives. Amusingly, we feel like we've invented this feeling.When people tell me that their generation is somehow unique in this feeling, I ask them to talk to their parents and their grandparents. Soon they discover it is merely a myth that takes just a few minutes to dispel. When your parents laugh at your hubris for an hour or so, it's quite a gut-check.Nonetheless, we can posit that we've managed to give ourselves a lot more controllable distractions than were there before. We just don't control them very well.So for this third post on Task Types, we'll do some work/life balance tasks and, like we did with work tasks, we'll establish some rules around them. Again, let's use colors.Let's say that purple represents family time. Use purple stickies and note real family time - not that trip to Costco but rather, those things that your kids will look back on and remember with a smile.Next, let's have blue represent those things that need to be done for the family. These are tasks like, "Fix the leak in the downstairs bathroom" or "Mow the Lawn."Finally, let's use green for aspirations. These are tasks like "Read the complete works of Vonnegut" or "Learn Personal Kanban" or "Get CPR Certificate."Sound good? Great! So what happens next?These colored tasks can appear on your Personal Kanban as task types. You can then set up your balance - literally. Every day you can pull one purple. Every week you can pull two blue and two green. And in your DONE column, you can see where you are with your goals.Work/life balance now has a shape and a color palette.Having said this, I consider my work and my life as indiscrete parts of a continuum. I love what I'm doing at Modus and the people I'm doing it with. So for me, the balance comes from not becoming so enamored with Modus work that I forsake all other activities.  And, yes, I do need to work on this.But, I will venture a guess that if you actively dislike what you do professionally, work/life balance will be unapproachable. You simply cannot dislike that much of your life and expect to achieve a healthy balance.Photo by Robotography