This principle is easier said than done, but not for the reason I initially thought. A friend of mine had an idea for how his team could completely transform the way they did documentation and discovery work. It was a great idea for sure, but I found myself trying to temper his enthusiasm instead of pushing the change. My advice? Start small and pull in one small improvement then give it time. That reminded me of an excellent illustration of the start with what you do now principle. Your Tuesday Tidbit...starts now.
Some years ago, I worked with a church media group and we were asked to add live broadcasting as an outreach tool. Instead of starting with the best that money could buy, we started by putting an iPhone on a stationary pole and broadcasting live to social media. After a few months of perfecting that, we took steps to improve the audio quality. After gathering months of feedback from our media team and church members, we moved to the next upgrade. Over a few years, we grew that to a handful of cameras with a team of people running a production level broadcast that now reaches a worldwide audience. Some of you may be thinking, “Tristan, an iPhone on a stick isn’t very impressive.” It was for the handful of eager online watchers that had near immediate access to a life changing message.
Most churches want all the bells and whistles and the worldwide audience without the knowledge or volunteers to support it. We quickly realized we had no idea how to run a broadcast, much less have a team in place to properly execute. People seldom consider the tremendous price they pay to try and force something to work instead of organically growing it. (This may sound an awful lot like thin slicing and iteration. That’s because it is...but that’s a future tidbit.)
Kanban’s first principle is the same way. There is no “right way.” There is no new process to install. There is no rollout. No sweeping changes here. Of course there COULD be, but the Kanban method does not ask you to change to a different process. Instead, it’s based on the idea that you methodically evolve YOUR process by committing to make it better over time. There is no such thing as The Kanban Project Management Method. Let that sink in. Everything you’ve heard of; Starting Kanban, Roles & Cadences, Concurrency, etc... these are all just tools and methods your team can pull from as you seek to improve what you already do. The quickest way to short circuit even the best change plan is introducing too much change at once. It is a recipe for resistance and confounded variables.
I will leave you with this mind grenade. No matter what improvements you’ve already made, you will always be “starting with what you do now,” because you will forever be doing something now. Whether you have a grand improvement plan or not, just take what you do now, and make the next best improvement.
Until next time,
Tristan