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The problem is that we are working with dysfunctional processes—companies haven’t adapted to keep up with demand in a healthy, sustainable way. Instead, we see the continued use of antiquated approaches meant to keep workers busy all the time. These processes are not working. This is the elephant in the office.
As Edwards Deming said, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”5
Code will be used in ways we cannot anticipate, in ways it was never designed for, and for longer than it was ever intended. —Joshua Corman
There is one most important thing—let people know what it is. Conflicting priorities occur when people are uncertain on what the highest priority is. This leads to too much WIP, which leads to longer cycle times.
Businesses frequently prioritize new feature releases over fixing technical debt. They choose to work on revenue-generating work instead of revenue-protection work.
The WIP limits add tension to the system.
Because the business is often unaware of what’s involved in keeping a system secure, reliable, and functioning, revenue-generating work is considered a higher priority than intangible maintenance and sustainment work.
Lead time and cycle time are types of flow time metrics. They both measure duration. Using pizza order and delivery as an example, the lead time clock starts ticking when the customer orders the pizza, while the cycle time clock doesn’t start ticking until the cook begins making the pizza. People who order pizza care about lead time. They want their pizza delivered quickly. Internal teams care about cycle time. They try to reduce the wait time in the delivery pipeline to be more efficient. Lean organizations optimize for speed and effectiveness.
The odds of being predictable decrease when WIP constantly in-creases and flow times elongate.
Due dates don’t take wait time into consideration.
Focus on the wait time and not on the process time.
Old school management assumptions about economy of scale do not apply to knowledge work problems such as software development.
Work batched up in smaller sizes constrains the amount of work needed to be completed before receiving feedback. Faster feedback makes for a better outcome.
Small batch sizes enable fast and predictable lead times in most value streams, which is why there is a relentless focus on creating a smooth and even flow of work.
management responsibilities include knowing the demand on my team and being able to present what the demand looked like in relation to the capability of the team to meet the demand.
