From Zebra Herd To Kanban.
The zebra stripes confuses the lion. Each individual’s stripes blends in with the stripes of the herd fellows around this particular zebra. The lion has trouble picking out any one zebra and he’s got no plan for how to attack. He can’t even understand in which direction the zebra is moving. The predator doesn’t see a prey, it can only see a lot of stripes – hundreds or thousands – moving around in an unpredictable pattern.
Each zebra is an activity in our To-Do. We are the lion that needs to focus on one zebra at a time. Our Work-In-Progress mustn’t be the number of individuals in the zebra herd. Our effort to complete any task, depends on our success in separating a zebra from the herd. And even more: to complete the most important task – to be maximum effective – we must separate the right zebra from the herd.
Great news is that there are good practices that come to rescue. The Now List is mandatory, i.e. you must limit the work in progress. You must also understand that focus mode (completing tasks) and overview mode (classifying, sorting, and prioritizing tasks) are not compatible. You need to alternate frequently between these two modes — in a controlled way. And a third practice is to visualize all potential upcoming activities. The recipe goes: create the big picture, choose your target, and don’t constantly switch.
