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I was researching on a popular agile method, Kanban but I couldn't really find any helpful material. Most importantly, I don't really get how WIP can be helpful in Kanban.

According to this wikipedia article, Kanban advocates limiting work in progress, which as well as reducing waste due to multitasking and context switching, exposes operational problems and stimulates collaboration to continuously improve the system.

This explanation about WIP came off as strange to me, because, I think, it's assuming that one worker is supposed to be working only on one of the whole Kanban stages, such as "to do", "development", "test", "finished" rather than take one item and take care of it over the whole stages. I think only two stages among them, which are "development" and "test", are the stages where you do work. So if you are working on "test" stage, is that the job you are supposed to do all day long without touching "development" process at all? It seems too rigid.. Is that really how agile companies out there work?

  • This question is should not be asked here? Out of topic. Choose another stackexchange platform here : http://stackexchange.com/sites – osmanraifgunes Dec 03 '16 at 13:44
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on project management – Paul Sweatte Dec 27 '16 at 16:57
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it isn't about programming. – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine Jul 11 '17 at 04:27
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because project-management should be asked at [Project Management](https://pm.stackexchange.com/) – BDL Aug 14 '17 at 09:33
  • @PaulSweatte I understand that. But it seems like i cannot delete or move this post any more because some people has already answered by question. What should I do now? –  Aug 16 '17 at 04:52
  • @DerekKim I would open a new question on [PM.SE](https://pm.stackexchange.com/help/) which cross references this and [self-answer](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/237136/clarify-the-8-hour-delay-self-answer-message-to-discourage-self-answering-with) it if this question is closed. – Paul Sweatte Aug 16 '17 at 05:09

2 Answers2

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The quote from Wikipedia says:

...reducing waste due to multitasking and context switching

Note that it does not say 'eliminating waste due to multitasking and context switching'.

The WIP limit does not dictate one task at a time. The team tunes their WIP limit so that it provides the maximum throughput of work.

A team might try one task at a time per team member and realise that is not an efficient use of time. They could then raise the WIP limits until they found the sweet spot where throughput was maximised.

Barnaby Golden
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You're interpretation how kanban systems work and a WIP limits role in managing behaviour is incorrect, which isn't unexpected given the limited information available in the wikipedia article.

WIP limits are explicit policies that teams use to encourage the continuous flow of work through a kanban system. WIP limits are used to optimize pull behaviour given the needed operational characteristics of the kanban system (how does it need to perform).

This explanation about WIP came off as strange to me, because, I think, it's assuming that one worker is supposed to be working only on one of the whole Kanban stages

WIP Limits should not be implemented such that there is a WIP of 1 "thing" per person. That could happen, but it is unlikely given the scheduling needs of creative, knowledge work activities.

So if you are working on "test" stage, is that the job you are supposed to do all day long without touching "development" process at all?

WIP limits should manage work, not workers. A work item might be in testing, but that doesn't mean that a QA professional can't help somewhere else in the workflow. A WIP limit of 3 on Test means that only three work items should be in test at a time, and anything above or below that is not optimal behaviour for the system.

It seems too rigid.. Is that really how agile companies out there work?

Kanban is probably the most flexible of the methodologies that can support the emergence of agile capabilities in an organization or team. If you were to read Kanban by David Anderson or Kanban from the Inside you will get a much deeper and more accurate introduction to WIP limits and how they work in virtual kanban systems.

Dave White
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  • This is a great explanation and I appreciate that. Now I can pretty much imagine how Kanban works in practice. But what still don't understand is how WIP of Kanban prevents workers from doing many things at the same time. According to you, WIP is applied to works, not workers, so seems like it has nothing to do with multitasks done by a worker. –  Dec 06 '16 at 06:05
  • @DerekKim It doesn't stop multi-tasking per say. It encourages focus on finishing things. If teams aren't supposed to start something until something is finished, the team is encouraged to work on finishing stories. As teams _get this_, they start to swarm on things that need to get done instead of starting new things individually to keep themselves busy. Humans don't multi-task. We context-switch. Context switching is expensive. Kanban encourages us to minimize that cost via WIP limits. If you'd like to explore a more individual-based approach to kanban, google Personal Kanban. – Dave White Dec 16 '16 at 16:34