Last
week I showed you how my example blogger friend manages his blogging and life
using Kanban.
So lets
dig a little deeper :
How do
you do this yourself based on last week example?
Step 1: Understand
Your Goals
Why are
you writing your blog? For fun? To put your thoughts down on virtual paper? To
gain a reputation as the best carpenter in the neighbourhood?
The
reason isn’t important. What is important is that you know what the
reason is.
Our
blogger from last week uses the blog as a means to an end. He wants to enhance
his professional reputation, and get invited to lecture on his subject.
Step 2: What
Do You Need?
To
succeed in reaching your goals, you need to perform certain actions. For
example:
1.
We need to publish a post
once or even twice a week.
2.
We need to find time to
write and post to the blog without losing our day job.
3.
What happens when you go on
a three week vacation? Does someone else update your blog?
4.
Do we need to factor in
peer review times?
5.
We need to track our
reading rates and statistics.
6.
We need to distribute the
blog posts through online channels.
7.
We want to be able to
answer reader questions and post requests.
8.
We want to add more blogs
in the future.
Starting
off using Kanban to manage your flow may be hard at the beginning, but in few
weeks you’ll get the hang of it.
Step 3: Based on
your needs , go and Visualize your flow.
This is
a crucial step. Visibility is a powerful aid to getting things done. Remember,
the flow we build in the beginning can change - in fact, it HAS to change, as
our needs change or our view of our actual performance changes. When we think
‘effective and ongoing improvement’, we change things.
So put
on your blogger hat, and Map the steps you do when writing and publishing a
post. Once you’ve put down this basic flow, ask yourself what you’ve forgotten.
Go over all the steps.
But -
Don’t forget to keep it simple!
Elaborate
your flow..
1.
2.
3.
This
flow shows the step by step path a blogger takes from a concept to a finalised
blog post.
So where
do we visualize the flow ? Set a Task Flow board.
Usually I would recommend a white board and some
sticky notes . This time. I’d like to show you the flow using
a software tool. As we have to write documents and move ideas , pics and
documents around, it’s so much easier to use software.
Each
post will be a card moving on this board columns according to its actual state.
Prioritize
your posts.
Start
working and move posts around the board.
look at
your flow and ask yourself does it mach
your needs? does it fit your vision ?
Step 4 :
Limit work in progress (The work you began and didn't finish yet) :
It means ,
understand your limits, and follow them.
When we acceded the
number of tasks/ work we can handle , we end out doing nothing valuable. in
fact , we end investing more effort then expected. We need
to Focus on the important &
Challenges . This way, instead of dealing with things that aren’t getting done,
we focus on what’s really important, and have time to learn new skills.
Keep in
mind, that in some steps of your work
you want to limit yourself from getting overloaded or with mach more
tasks that you can handle. Limiting yourself prevents you from overloading, and
getting stuck with a lot of unfinished writing that cannot be published.
First, Work in small chunks. It means , you don’t have to have an
idea and then elaborate it fully to 3000 words and all in one time.
As our
blogger did, work on small slices of time every day. Take
small chunks of time and invest them in small flow steps every day. After all, you also want to be with your
family, and you’ve got your job to think about. Doing some research for half an
hour every night is a good start.
In fact,
the flow reflects this need to work in small chunks. We have a chunk for ideas,
then a chunk to elaborate on them, then a chunk to review, and so on.
Backlog
Don’t
limit the backlog. Got an idea? Stick it here.
Ready
This one
is a bit tricky. The limit is for the minimum, not the maximum number of ready
posts. It’s best not to count on having just one post ready to go. Make sure
you have enough posts ready to keep the flow moving. So having 3 posts
ready at any given time, is the policy for this column.
Review
For our
blogger the maximum number of posts ready for review is two They can’t do
anymore.
Published
Once a
week. This limit is a time constraint. You can change it, but you don’t want to
inundate your audience.
Distributed
Two days
after publication. This is a policy and limitation we need to keep in our
blogger world.
Follow
This
column starts day after the publication and is followed for a week . We need to
know that we track each post, so that we can improve on them in the future.
Step 5:
Make process policies explicit:
Set up
your rules and guidelines of your work
Understand your needs and make sure to follow the rules. the policies
will define when and why a ticket is move from one column to another. write
them down .Change the rules when reality changes.
For
example,
Make
sure to prepare your peer for the next blog and priority.
What is
the best time to write your post? During the weekend? The evening? When is the
best time to review it?
Step 6:
Improve:
Moving
forward from task to task without looking into your performance will bring
little or no improvement. We want to avoid doing the same mistakes over and
over again. We want to be efficient. For example, if you find yourself
correcting post after post, after they are reviewed, ask yourself how can you
do it better. Maybe you’re just using the wrong file format. So change your
formatting from now on.
Improving
is a key. Take a look at your performance. Are you satisfied with the results?
Try to improve and change accordingly. don't be afraid to change , try and learn from the change (PDCA).
We may need to change our flow or policies, our audience or reviewers. What
brings better results? This is a process
done all the time.
Measure, monitor and manage your flow:
Our
blogger wants to have a size of that’s that he can handle throe the process
steps easily. Measure your ability to
write – 600-1600 words in a week. Is it
small enough? Or should your posts be smaller. Can the average reader read
3,000 words? Isn't it too big? Do we need to change the flow as a result?
Can you
keep on posting a blog once a week as you need to? If not, what is holding you
back? What are the relevant changes in the flow you want to add so you will be
able to keep publishing a post every once a week?
We can
measure the cycle time of writing a blog. That means, from when you
start elaborating an idea (a) to the time it is distributed (b).
Now, is
the cycle important? The answer is probably yes. Lets say that you are
approached by an author, who wants you to review his book. Knowing the length
of your cycle means that you can give an estimation as to how long the post
will take. Will it be published in two weeks? Four?
The main
principle is - Improve. Know your field and improve. How many visitors
come and read your blog? What type of blog brought the most visitors? Does your
flow as it is have an impact over this data?
**The
tool chosen for this presentation is swift Kanban, it has a free interface easy
to use and professionally fit to our blogging needs.
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