My presentation from the 2014 Digital PM Summit on Personal Kanban.

1. Ready Doing Done
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning
PERSONAL KANBAN
Less Guilt - More Finishing
Dave Prior
DPM Symposium 2014

2. Ready Doing Done
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning

5. !
!
I had stuff to do…

6. and I’m all like…

7. so they put me in charge of making sure
other people have stuff to do

8. and I’m trying to be all like…

9. but I’m really like…

10. and I end up like…

11. AND THEN…

14. Ready Doing Done
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning

15. THERE ARE ONLY 2 RULES TO
PERSONAL KANBAN

16. rule #1: Visualize your work

17. STEP 1: MAP YOUR WORKFLOW
Create your own, or use the example that has been
provided
BACKLOG
READY DOING DONE
BLOCKED
NEW
DAILY

18. STEP 2: FILL YOUR BACKLOG
Write down all the
stuff you need to get
done today.
One item per post-it.
Put them in the
backlog column.

19. WARNING!!
If you can’t fit all your stuff into that little backlog
box. Please become as irritated as possible.
If you are irritated enough, decide if you want to
do something to fix it.

20. rule #2: Limit your work in
progress (WIP)

21. There is a limit to how much you can do at one time.
!
There is also a limit to how much you can do in a single day.

22. To figure out how to go faster
Figure out what is making you slow

23. STEP 3: CREATE A WIP LIMIT FOR
YOUR READY AND DOING COLUMNS
Just get started
Pay Attention
You can change it later (if you still want to)

24. STEP 4: BE HONEST, KEEP NOTES
• Your board should reflect what
is happening.
(Not what you want to happen.)
• It’s a good idea to keep notes
on what you observe each day.

25. Focus more on learning about how you work…
and the tasks will take care of themselves

26. Ready Doing Done
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning

27. SIMPLE, NOT EASY
There are only 2 rules… when you break them, figure out why you needed to do that

28. MAKING IT WORK
Discipline Of Practice
Mindfulness
An Empirical Approach

29. DISCIPLINE OF PRACTICE
Have the discipline to take responsibility for how
you choose to work

30. MINDFULNESS
Be mindful about how you work and why you
make different choices
If your board reflects what you want to happen, as
opposed to what is happening, why?
When you don’t follow the rules figure out why

31. EMPIRICAL APPROACH
When you observe yourself not following the rules,
form hypothesis and test your theories
It’s a good idea to have someone act as your
coach or accountability partner
Boz

32. Ready Doing Done
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning

33. You may find that you kinda suck
And then you are going to have to
do something about it

34. WHY I DID THIS
• To learn how Personal Kanban works and how it is
different from Kanban.
• To figure out if I could actually do it

35. MY SET UP
• Each experiment lasted 2 weeks and ended with a
retrospective and a blog post
• I got a coach and set up calls every two weeks
• He asked me to use TrackYourHappiness.org

36. How I felt when I started doing all these experiments

37. How I felt when I saw what they had to tell me.

38. TEN MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I HAVE
LEARNED USING PERSONAL KANBAN
1. My work practices are far more dysfunctional
than I realized (I’m a frigging mess)
2. I am the architect of my demise and the root
cause of my failure to get stuff done
3. Learn to cope with the velvet rope
4. Some waste may be required
5. Moving stuff across the board is not the most
important thing

39. TEN MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I HAVE
LEARNED USING PERSONAL KANBAN
6. There is no separation between work life and
personal life (at least for me)
7. Naps are awesome
8. Downtime is unavoidable and that is not a bad
thing
9. I am an insanely fortunate person
10. Learning to hack yourself is the greatest way to
combat the Mark Inside

40. Ready Doing Done
!
My Blog Posts
http://tinyurl.com/DPM-PK-Index
!
Recommended Books on PK
Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and
Tonianne DeMaria Barry
A Factory of One by Dan Markovitz
Why Limit WIP - by Jim Benson
Why Plans Fail - by Jim Benson
Backstory
Getting
Started
Making It
Work
Learning

41. Dave Prior!
dprior@bigvisible.com!
Blog: drunkenpm.blogger.com!
Twitter: @mrsungo!
Skype: mrsungo!
!
www.bigvisible.com