The ABC's of Personal Kanban in the Classroom

Personal Kanban in the classroom is one area that I am highly passionate about.  Why? I have seen it in action, first-hand in the preschool classroom.  As a teacher it is exciting when your students are excited about learning.The first Personal Kanban we introduced at preschool was an ABC's Kanban.  We used this for 26 weeks, each week introducing a new letter for the students to learn.

Preschool ABC's Kanban

 When we began on our evolving classroom journey we had just a few simple goals:

• We wanted to the classroom Personal Kanban to easily understood by parents and the teachers alike.

• We wanted the students to excel at what had traditionally been a very unappealing and difficult part of the preschool classroom activity-learning to write the letters. We wanted to excite the children about learning not think of it as a chore.

Using this Kanban with our students we learned that theexcitement from the children grew every week with each letter they completed on their task card. Students were excited to share their work with other children in the classroom.  Students wanted to collaborate on the chalkboard writing their letters, teaching other studentshow to write letters. The students were waiting at the board before their name is called to come over with their task card, in anticipation of receiving a sticker reward for a job well done.  We had a completely engaged classroom environment.We had many, many retrospective talks about the board, we had more Kaizen moments than I can list. It was like standing back watching a puzzle magically come together piece by piece every week.Week after week students began going above and beyond, even turning their task cards over to more work!

Preschool alphabet learning task cards

We realized we didn't have to write the students names on the cards anymore because they began to write their names on their own on the cards.

Examples of student written names ABC's Kanban

We were amazed by our ABC's Kanban and how much the students embraced their learning experience. When we were wrapping up our parent-teacher conferences, when speaking with the parents I heard the following statements, “My child loved working on her task card it made her feel important.”“To have all the cards for my child to be able to look back and see all the letters he learned, I wasn’t just telling him, I was showing him, he was able to see all he’s learned.” And finally one parent remarked to me “He was so excited to get into class to show you his card, week after week his excitement grew, he’s been so proud of his work.” The 4 & 5 year old preschool class continues to use this ABC's Kanban successfully.

This an updated post that originally appeared on the Nothing is Out of Reach blog.

Kanban: A Universe of Options for Life’s Planning & Organizing Challenges #2

This is the second post in a guest series, Kanban: A Universe of Options for Life’s Planning & Organizing Challenges by Nadja  Schnetzler.

Visualize your work

When I talk about visualizing the work, and why this is beneficial, I usually start drawing a kanban board and to create a few post it's based on any project the participants are willing to invent or talk about. People usually are taken with the idea of showing „everything that could be done“ in the first column. It makes them really enthusiastic about the project. I then explain the basic flow through the board, starting with the most simple form (three columns, „to do“ „doing“ and „done“). There is really no explanation needed to show how the stickies flow through the board. It’s completely self-evident.

Make sure that the tasks are small enough

This is usually a very funny point. I try to bring it across, for example, with the task „organize client event“. Immediately, people can see what the problem is with this task. It contains a lot of subtasks and thus will not flow through the board easily. Also, it contains many different kinds of tasks that are suitable for different skill sets and different people, so it makes no sense to keep them all in one Post-it. We then proceed to creating a few subtasks for this bigger task, such as „get offers for catering“, „organize band“ or „rent a location“. This is also a good opportunity to talk about a concept of „definition of done“, usually resulting in a discussion about how a good stickie should be worded to be clear for an individual or for a group. It also becomes clear at this point that „small enough“ is something else for everyone. If we work alone, we can choose the size that works best for us, that allows our tasks to flow well through our board. If we work with others, we need to agree on how tasks should be worded and designed to work for everyone. In such a group setting, the need for a facilitating role in the team emerges very quickly.

Limit the stuff that is going on at the same time

Introducing the idea of limiting work in progress to increase throughput is not at all abstract if we already have a board we are working with. If I work with an individual, most people settle with one, two or (the very brave ones) three tasks that can be in the „doing“ column. If I work with a team, the team usually makes an informed guess about how many tasks can be in the active column for work to flow well. Here, I also introduce the idea of „inspecting and adapting“ the workflow and the WIP regularly.

For individuals, a great help can be to define the WIP according to the day at hand. If I have a huge task that absolutely needs to be finished today, my WIP is 1. If I have a ton of small boring stuff going on, it might be 3, just to keep me from falling asleep during one task and to allow me to do a little bit of „jumping from task to task“ if I feel like it. On the other hand, if I have a day full of meetings, my WIP again must be one, allowing me to not overestimate the stuff that I will get done during this day, and allowing for better predictions about how long tasks in preparatory column will be sitting there until they can be selected and finished. This is important for conversations with clients or with managers who want information or who want to push new tasks into our systems.  Having the „limit the stuff“ conversation is always an amazing moment in introducing kanban, you can really see people having their aha moment.

Communicate with yourself and with others regularly

A great benefit of a kanban board is that it serves as a conversation starter the moment you show it to other people. It triggers conversation because it’s so visual and because it is so self-explanatory. I always find it amazing how a team starts to talk about their work and their tasks in a completely new way just because they stand in front of a board. And the most amazing thing is that the conversation is more valuable and more rich from the first moment a team uses kanban. I think it has to do with the fact that the team is conversing on the same level, using the same tool and the same framework for the conversation, and this without having had extensive training, having read a manual or anything else you would expect when introducing a new way of working. It just, magically, amazingly, works.

Improve your system regularly

I am re-inventing my kanban board on a very regular basis. For one, because I get bored with the old one quickly, but also because I like my new kanban board to reflect what I have learned in the past. I adapt my columns, my stickie colors, the way I describe tasks on the stickies, but I also take care to create every kanban board in a way that motivates me for the next few hours, days, or weeks. I am happy to share a few pictures of different kanban boards I have been using. For me as an individual, improving also largely means adapting the kanban board to the context I am in. If I have a light week with only a few tasks, a simple paper with a few stickies for reference will suffice. But if my week is loaded to the last minute with task, I invest much more time in planning, describing and designing tasks, of course. Accordingly, the look of my kanban board changes. And there are even days when I do only use what I call a „mental kanban board“, one that is just in my head (which is unadvisable for teams, because it is no longer possible to communicate about the work with others).

I encourage teams to inspect their board very regularly in the first weeks of using kanban and to change the board often, improving it daily, then weekly. Then, when the team settles for a system, I encourage them to look at the state of the board (not just the WIP) at least once a month.

Do not over-engineer (as little as possible, as much as necessary)

When I work with people new to kanban I very soon (about half an hour into the training) encourage them to design their own board. It is pretty startling to see how soon people who are used to defining every single detail in their workflow get carried away with over-engineering their board. They start using six different colors for stickies, create complex swimlane systems. Introduce meta-layers of additional information that make it downright impossible to benefit from the kanban board in the way it should normally be the case: By seeing everything relevant at the glance of an eye.

I then try to reverse the system. I ask: „What would the most basic, simple kanban board look like that would still help you feel confident about your work and the tasks at hand?“

Once this is clear, the individual can then start adding additional layers of information to the board and the tasks.

Nadja Schnetzler was born in Switzerland and spent her childhood in Mexico City. After graduating from High School, she was a founding member of BrainStore, the first Idea Factory in the world. She has a bachelors degree in journalism from renowned “Ringier School of Journalism”. Over the last 25 years, Nadja has led over 600 innovation projects for companies like Nestlé, Siemens, the Swiss Railways, Kraft Foods, BMW, Save the Children, the United Nations or Amnesty International. She is the author of the book “The Ideamachine” (Wiley) and a sought-after speaker and lecturer at various universities.In 2012, Nadja founded «Word and Deed» with the aim at inspiring organisations, companies, teams and individuals. Word and Deed works in the areas of communication, innovation and collaboration. Kanban has become one of the most important agents of change for Nadja and her clients.Nadja lives in Switzerland with her husband and her two teenage kids. She enjoys listening to and playing baroque music (with her violin) and has an open house for people from all walks of life.This is the second post in the guest series by Nadja Schnetzler - Kanban: A universe of Options for Life's Planning & Organizing Challenges. You can read the first post here.

Small New Years Projects (Cabana Kaizen)

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For those of us who might be sitting in a world of clutter, where a million small tasks have become one daunting one - I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START! - the only way out of that jungle is through.Since every journey begins with a single step - we can only begin by simply beginning. But that first step is usually the hardest.Homes are especially plagued by little tasks that never seem to get done. They mount up and all seem to be equally important or equally unimportant. Prioritization is difficult, and procrastination ensues.So, I propose the over-all New Year’s Resolution - This year, each month my house will be a little better.To do this, you can create a Personal Kanban for this specific purpose - or a swimlane on your existing board. They would look something like this:The steps here:1. Come up with 12 small, but noticeable projects2. Start with the smallest one3. Do one a month.That really wasn’t too difficult, was it?You’ll find, as I have, that keeping a board like this compels you (in a good way) to want to do many more than 12 of these small projects.Two things are important here:First, start small and stay small. Make incremental improvements that you and others can see. Don’t rebuild the house or put in new floors right away. Again, like in the last post, we are forming habits here. For Gary, the first task he’s taking on is finishing one that has been sitting uncompleted. Before making it a set of tasks - it was part of that daunting sea of blue tickets. Now, that project is alone. It’s manageable. And better yet, the cards are atomic - meaning each car is actionable on its own and in relative short time. If Gary is sitting at his desk in his home office working and wants to take a short break - he can go line up the cans of paint, judge how old they are and what’s needed and move the card. Having moved that one card, he’s now one step closer to getting that bit of existential overhead removed from his life forever.Second, keep that Personal Kanban visible! If you can’t see the Personal Kanban, it can’t remind you and it can’t reward you. If Gary doesn’t see that list of projects he won’t feel any more compelled to complete them than he did before the board. And if he completes tasks he can see that there is progress and will be more likely to continue that progress.We humans are very good at procrastinating - use the board to undermine this natural behavior and get the work done. Completed projects mean a prettier home and a better life. (And yes, relaxing can also be a goal on the kanban - it’s not about work, it’s about life.)

Two Personal Kanban Resolution Ideas

Happy 2013!Most people I know don’t even make New Year’s Resolutions anymore, and when they do - they are perfunctory and amorphous. I will lose weight, I will exercise more, I will grow wings and fly like a bat.But these are all as unlikely as they are amorphous, and they are unlikely because they are amorphous. I, for example, have had a long standing goal to walk 10,000 steps. This can sometimes (or quite often) be a challenge in Seattle when it’s often drizzly and cold. In July, I crush my goal! But I can’t have a yearly goal in one month.When we make resolutions that are difficult to achieve, we do really well at them for a while and then something happens - the weather changes or we get sick or we go on a trip. That breaks the flow of the resolution and we stop doing it. We try to do it from time to time, but that’s not quite the same.I’ve seen people be very successful at small New Year’s Resolutions like “this year I will clean the garage” because these resolutions are easy to grasp, schedule for, and complete.We can only complete our New Year’s goals if they are (a) a small project that we can focus on and complete or (b) a new habit we can intelligently weave into our daily lives. So here at Personal Kanban we have two recommendations we’ll talk about today, one is the Kaizen Resolution, the other is Small New Years Projects.And if you are wondering, I waited until after the first to write this because I figured that about now people would be like ... well, I made the resolution .. now what?

Managing Sandy’s Aftermath: Emergency Response Personal Kanban

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath

Despite our best efforts, there are simply some instances where we cannot limit our work-in-progress. Forces beyond our control seem to conspire to control us. Natural disasters are unfortunately well-suited for this - they have little or no respect for our carefully controlled WIP.When we’re smack in the middle of an emergency like Hurricane Sandy, it seems all we can do is react to immediate needs: which windows to avoid crashing tree limbs, what doors to insulate against rising and rushing water, where to seek shelter should evacuation become imminent. Once the storm passes, we’re left to contend with a heretofore unimaginable trail of destruction - to our homes, to our businesses, to our mental well-being.It is at the most emotional of moments that we find ourselves forced to make vital decisions. What do I do first? Where do I begin? Will I ever get out from beneath this overwhelming physical and psychological debris?In the Personal Kanban book, we discuss a design pattern which doesn’t quite resemble a “typical” Personal Kanban. In the aftermath of an emergency, the “Emergency Response Approach” helps us:

• Visualize all the work needed to respond to the situation at hand;

• Understand the complexity of the situation;

• Track the states of completion for most important and intricate tasks;

• Compile notes during the completion of those tasks;

• Keep a written record of how we dealt with the emergency;

• Dynamically re-prioritize tasks based on shifts in need or context; and

• Understand our options.

As you can see here, we created this matrix-style kanban with the goal of seeing all our work and ensuring that when we are finished we’ve lost no information in the process. We chose to go extremely low-tech - just flipchart paper and pen - not only because an online kanban would require electricity, but also because with a sticky note-based Personal Kanban the stickies could easily become detached, causing vital information to become lost.In an emergency situation, this kanban becomes your war room.Your “value stream” - the steps it takes to complete a task - might look something like this:

Task → Begun → Assembling → Assembled → Active → Complete → Notes

Begun: If it’s been started (you’ve begun to work on the task).Assembling: If it’s being assembled (you’re gathering paperwork or other requirements).Assembled: If it’s been assembled (requirements are complete).Active: If it’s being processed (by you, or you’re waiting for someone else to act).Complete: If it’s complete.Use the Notes column for points of contact, policy numbers, additional resources etc.One of the major elements of this design pattern is its tolerance for beginning some tasks while allowing others to remain incomplete. Why would we advocate not limiting WIP when that is one of Personal Kanban’s fundamental rules?During an emergency, opportunities to begin tasks are actually valuable.Ordinarily, we want to limit our work-in-progress and complete each task before a new one begins. In this case, there are way too many complicated tasks to undertake, too many coordination points, and too many things to do.This is multitasking by necessity, but it’s controlled multitasking. With a to-do list, we’d have an accounting of the tasks, but we wouldn’t understand their state or be able to limit our WIP. The Emergency Response Approach includes includes a few helpful features that are designed to overcome the limitations of a to-do list.It works like this:

1. In the Task column, write down everything you need to do. For the moment, don’t worry what size the tasks are. Just get them out of your head and onto your kanban.

2. Look at your Taskcolumn and begin working on the highest priority task.

   1. Note that you’ve started by writing a check mark in the Assembling column.

   2. Assemble all the items you need to actually complete the task (insurance numbers, phone numbers, pictures of damage, etc)

   3. When you are done mark with a check mark that you’ve Assembled everything and can begin working on the task in earnest. This task is now Active.

   4. Once a task is Active, take notes directly on the kanban in the Notes field (it’s okay to spill out). Our goal here is after everything is done, your emergency kanban is a one-stop-shop for what happened, when it happened, and how it happened.

   5. When the task is Complete, mark it and move on.

It’s important to note:

• You’ll have many tasks in-flight at once;

• You’ll be interrupted by other tasks constantly;

• You’ll never finish them in priority order;

• There will be many more tasks than you initially expected;

• You’ll need to remember details later that don’t necessarily matter to you right now;

• You are doing heroic things right now. This tool is here to help you keep track of what happened; and

• There are things you will miss, and that’s okay.

Your goal right now is to get your life back to normal. We hope this tool helps you through this difficult time and invite you to feel free to ask questions in the comments.Image from Hurricane Sandy courtesy of Casual Capture  whom we hope is okay.