Pull when you can, be pushed when you must.

Its focus on team work increased productivity and effectiveness brilliantly. But we were overlooking a vital element—the individual team member.

Life is not like that. It is variable. It changes whether we plan for it or not. Our systems need to be flexible to adapt to this variation.

Pull: To bring a task into DOING when you have capacity for it.

Back in Chapter 2, we introduced the TODAY column. Adding a TODAY column to the basic Personal Kanban READY -> DOING -> DONE value stream is more than a way to hyper-prioritize your work, it also serves as an evaluative measure.

Revisiting the freeway analogy, consider what makes the roadway flow. Is it the cars, or the space between the cars? If there were no cars, there would be nothing to flow. If there was no space, the cars could not move. It’s that balance between cars and open space that gives us flowing traffic. That open space is called “slack.” We need slack in

the closer you get to reaching your capacity, the more stress taxes your brain’s resources, and impacts your performance.

PKFLOW TIPS 1. Personal Kanban is an information radiator for your work. 2. Existential overhead mounts when work is conceptual. 3. Visualization makes the conceptual tangible. 4. We can’t do more work than we can handle. 5. Limiting WIP promotes completion and clarity. 6. Flexible systems adapt to changes in context.

Detroit’s focus on production (productivity) over value (effectiveness) dehumanized the workplace. Production became more important than people and innovation suffered.