Why should we limit Work In Progress?

Limiting work in progress (WIP) is a hallmark of the Kanban method, and it is crucial for the approach to function properly. When you first consider it, it could seem illogical.

Do we advocate for less work? No, restricting the work in progress instead refers to limiting the number of projects that can be started at once rather than the work itself.

Why should we limit work in progress?

1. To foster a culture of getting the job done, reduce time to market and minimize risk

Do you want to have 20 items halfway through without being sold, or rather 10 items ready to be sold? It's always best to focus on completing 10 User Stories and launching them. That's what limiting work in progress helps to achieve. So, if you limit the work in progress, you can easily focus on finishing the work started, as soon as possible to deliver it to the client and monetize it.

As far as WIP limits are concerned to reduce project risk, just imagine that if there are multiple items in progress at the same time, it will be impossible to test their compatibility with the running product, as well as with each other. Therefore, there is a high risk that the team will have to redo all the new components, rather than just test and integrate the newly finished one with the final product.

Therefore, it is preferable to focus on keeping cycle times short, delivering often and quickly, and speeding up fewer tasks. This truly agile approach will make your workflow sustainable and responsive to change.

2. To reduce meetings, turmoil, multitasking, and downtime

You will make it challenging to multitask by limiting the amount of work that is actively being done, both on an individual level and in terms of the combined team concentration. And it should be clear why concentrating consistently on one activity rather than switching between four tasks results in overall higher-quality output. As long as there are enough backlog items for all of the team members that are available, creating a Kanban board with WIP limitations also frequently tends to reduce employee downtime.

Another feature the fact that there are only so many projects going on at once is related to the fact that fewer projects mean fewer meetings, which means even more waste reduction for you! Additionally, status meetings' significance is diminished by Kanban boards' visual character.

3. Reduce batch sizes and implement a genuine pull process to increase yield.

It guarantees that the process proceeds with the best potential material throughput by only beginning work on what can be finished. Which results in more sales and reduced waste. Additionally, by requiring the team to wait until earlier tasks are finished before beginning another, you would be putting into practice a true pull process model. This involves not pushing work into the process whether it can be handled or not, but rather letting the team drag the new task when they are prepared for it.

A visible reduction in cycle time, or the amount of time it takes for an item to get from "Started" to "Done," will result from performance optimisation, and this will enable you continue to provide new releases on a regular basis.

When teams agree to work on no more than, say, one or two tasks per person at a time, this spirals into a situation where the project manager schedules no more than a certain number of tasks for each sprint or batch, thus limiting WIP can help reduce batch/print size of a product. Of course, this isn't always the case, and WIP restrictions by themselves don't ensure smaller lot sizes, but they certainly aid in maintaining them.

In our following post, we'll go through how to apply the limit work in progress.?Check out our website for additional information on agile.