Limiting WIP
WIP is the work a team or ART has in process. It has been started but is not complete. If we were to view WIP on our Kanban board, it would resemble the following screenshot:
Figure 4.4 – Kanban board highlighting WIP
It is important to make sure that the work within these columns is monitored so that it doesn’t overwhelm the teams or ART. According to Dominica DeGrandis, the effects of too much WIP may include the following:
- Too much multitasking, which will cause teams to spend too much time doing context switching and prevent them from finishing work
- New work items are started before existing work is finished
- Work takes a long time to finish (long lead times/cycle times)
A key way of ensuring that a team is not letting WIP go unchecked is by setting up WIP limits or constraints on each column between the Backlog column (where work has not been accepted yet) and the Done column (where completed work goes...
