In our previous episode, we talked about the importance of visualizing your current work-in-progress to uncover bottlenecks, enhance decision-making, and provide clarity on your team's workload. Now, let's tackle what often comes next: realizing you have too much work in progress.

Why does this happen so often to development teams, and what can we do about it? In this episode, we're diving into strategies to manage and prevent this overload. We’ll cover setting WIP limits, staying responsive, and juggling organizational demands effectively.

Tune in to hear how to avoid overcommitting, the perks of prioritizing and finishing tasks before jumping into new ones, and how to use Lean principles to keep your workflow sustainable.

When the kind of work we do is invisible (like software development), it can be a challenge to keep track of what work is going on at any given time. That's where visualization can be a great tool for understanding your team's work in progress.

Building on last episode's discussion on creating workflow visualizations, in this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood explores the importance of visualizing work in progress to uncover current projects in flight and find hidden bottlenecks and inefficiencies. I discuss the pros and cons of common WIP visualizations (lists, Kanban boards, etc.) so that you can decide on a visualization that fits your unique workflow, even if it means thinking outside the box.

A lot of what we do in software development is invisible. If someone is typing furiously on their keyboard, you don't know if they're about to finish that new feature or if they're complaining to their state representative.

One of the things that tends to be invisible is the actual process of getting something from “request” to “deliverable.”

Everybody kind of knows what that process is, but they typically only know their piece of it, and they probably haven't thought critically about it in years.

Creating a visualization of this process can:

• Spotlight potential weak points
• Improve communication
• Reveal the complexities of your team's workflow
• Uncover hidden opportunities for optimization

In this episode I'm sharing practical tips for mapping out your processes, understanding team dynamics, and setting the stage for continuous improvement.