Trap the Five Thieves of Time by Making Work and Flow Visible
summary
Shows a concrete method: use a Kanban board and five flow metrics to expose specific time sinks. Example results include a 21‑day construction delay traced to too much WIP, product ideation average dropping from 55 to 30 days by limiting WIP, and engineering flow efficiency rising from 25% to 50% while flow time falls from 9 to 7 days. Also makes unplanned work visible, reserves capacity (flow load down to ~20%), and rebalance feature vs bug swimlanes.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction to time thieves
- 3:11Building dream home disaster
- 4:15Thief one too much WIP
- 7:05Thief two unknown dependencies
- 10:17Thief three unplanned work
- 13:04Thief four conflicting priorities
- 15:50Thief five neglected work
- 18:38Trap thieves at work
- 20:23Make work flow visible
- 24:14Key flow metrics explained
- 26:22Case study WIP reduction
- 29:12Case study unknown dependencies
- 31:37Case study unplanned work
- 35:09Case study conflicting priorities
- 37:37Case study neglected work
- 40:28Three key takeaways
- 41:54Q&A and conclusion
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