You didn't work any harder.
You just stopped starting things.
Thanks for playing! Same work, same dice, same three days. The only thing that changed in the second round was how many work items you'd let yourself have going at once, and that's the whole trick.
Monster Mail
Every month or so I send out a real case study, one small thing you can put to work that week, whatever I've written lately, and where I'll be teaching and speaking next. That's it, and you can leave whenever you want.
Thanks! The next one goes out when I've got something worth sending.
Email info@lilagilemonster.com and I'll add you by hand.
Everything at once
Four work items in progress, and every one of them gets touched every day, because four things in progress means four people who want to know how their thing is going. Three days later there's effort in all four and almost nothing finished.
Two at a time
Same four work items, same dice, same three days. You finished most of them, and the ones you finished were done days earlier than anything in round one was going to be.
Nobody worked harder
The dice decided how much effort happened, and they were the same dice both rounds. So the effort was identical. All that changed is how much of it landed on something that got finished, and that's a choice your team makes every morning without noticing.
Three things your board already knows
You don't need a new tool to find out whether your team is playing round one. If your board records the day work starts and the day it finishes, you can answer all three of these this week.
Count the days from when a work item starts to when it's done, for everything you finished lately. Not what you think it takes. What it took.
For everything in progress right now, how many days has it been going? Anything older than what you usually take is the conversation you should be having today.
Count the work items you finished in each of the last several weeks, week by week. The week-to-week spread is the interesting part, and one number hides it.
Or just send me the data
If you'd rather not do it yourself, export what's on your board and send it over. I'll pull the numbers, plot them, and walk you through what they say about how your work actually flows. Takes about half an hour and there's nothing to buy at the end of it.
I won't tell you a date. I'll show you what your own history says is likely, with the odds attached, which is the version you can take to your leadership and defend.
Set up a look at your boardThe flow and forecasting discipline underneath all of this is what I teach in my ProKanban.org courses.
See upcoming classes →