Darkest Deception (Deception Series)

Machines need to be productive. People need to be effective. Productivity books focus on doing more, Jim and Tonianne want you to focus on doing better. Personal Kanban is about choosing the right work at the right time. Recognizing why we do the things we do. Understanding the impact of our actions. Creating value - not just product. For ourselves, our families, our friends, our co-workers. For our legacy. __Personal Kanban__ takes the same Lean principles from manufacturing that led the Japanese auto industry to become a global leader in quality, and applies them to individual and team work. __Personal Kanban__ asks only that we visualize our work and limit our work-in-progress. Visualizing work allows us to transform our conceptual and threatening workload into an actionable, context-sensitive flow. Limiting our work-in-progress helps us complete what we start and understand the value of our choices. Combined, these two simple acts encourage us to improve the way we work and the way we make choices to balance our personal, professional, and social lives. Neither a prescription nor a plan, __Personal Kanban__ provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with __Personal Kanban__. **Jim Benson'**s 20 years since university have seen him build light rail systems and neighborhoods as a urban planner, enterprise software and web sites for major government agencies as the owner of Gray Hill Solutions, and, most recently, as a collaborative management consultant helping create better working environments for teams of all sizes. The common thread in his history has the physical, regulatory, technological, emotional and political boundaries of community. Jim has worked with corporate, government, and not-for-profit organizations of all sizes. Taking Lean principles from manufacturing and Agile methodologies from software design, Jim Benson and Modus Cooperandi help individuals, teams, and organizations design collaborative systems. These systems are often built using social media technology as an enabler for communication and collaboration. **Tonianne DeMaria Barry**'s consulting career spans the fashion industry and government agencies, non-profit associations and Fortune 100 corporations, start-ups and international development. Her academic training in history lends itself well to management consulting, where she contends that especially in business, the present value of the past is often under-appreciated. Forever asking Why and How things happen, she helps her clients uncover, analyze, and interpret their institutional artifacts. Leveraging the stories and values embedded within an organization's culture, she helps individuals use their history to establish priorities, achieve goals, and make informed and innovative decisions. Much like __Personal Kanban__ itself, she wants her clients to acknowledge their past and present contexts, appreciate the interconnectedness and flow of events, and extract lessons from the patterns which emerge so they can better plan for the future. Machines need to be productive. People need to be effective. Productivity books focus on doing more, Jim and Tonianne want you to focus on doing better. Personal Kanban is about choosing the right work at the right time. Recognizing why we do the things we do. Understanding the impact of our actions. Creating value - not just product. For ourselves, our families, our friends, our co-workers. For our legacy. Personal Kanban takes the same Lean principles from manufacturing that led the Japanese auto industry to become a global leader in quality, and applies them to individual and team work. Personal Kanban asks only that we visualize our work and limit our work-in-progress. Visualizing work allows us to transform our conceptual and threatening workload into an actionable, context-sensitive flow. Limiting our work-in-progress helps us complete what we start and understand the value of our choices. Combined, these two simple acts encourage us to improve the way we work and the way we make choices to balance our personal, professional, and social lives. Neither a prescription nor a plan, Personal Kanban provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban . Jim Benson' s 20 years since university have seen him build light rail systems and neighborhoods as a urban planner, enterprise software and web sites for major government agencies as the owner of Gray Hill Solutions, and, most recently, as a collaborative management consultant helping create better working environments for teams of all sizes. The common thread in his history has the physical, regulatory, technological, emotional and political boundaries of community. Jim has worked with corporate, government, and not-for-profit organizations of all sizes. Taking Lean principles from manufacturing and Agile methodologies from software design, Jim Benson and Modus Cooperandi help individuals, teams, and organizations design collaborative systems. These systems are often built using social media technology as an enabler for communication and collaboration. Tonianne DeMaria Barry 's consulting career spans the fashion industry and government agencies, non-profit associations and Fortune 100 corporations, start-ups and international development. Her academic training in history lends itself well to management consulting, where she contends that especially in business, the present value of the past is often under-appreciated. Forever asking Why and How things happen, she helps her clients uncover, analyze, and interpret their institutional artifacts. Leveraging the stories and values embedded within an organization's culture, she helps individuals use their history to establish priorities, achieve goals, and make informed and innovative decisions. Much like Personal Kanban itself, she wants her clients to acknowledge their past and present contexts, appreciate the interconnectedness and flow of events, and extract lessons from the patterns which emerge so they can better plan for the future. Individuals work in teams to create value. This is the Collaboration Equation. Professionals act with confidence . The By their very design, the organizations we work for destroy confidence. They run on systems and processes that starve professionals of information, direction, psychological safety, and purpose, causing even the most talented individuals to question themselves and their decisions. They drift and become alienated, inevitably turning to structures that force competent and thoughtful people to wait for direction which never comes. Whether virtually or in real life, we isolate workers in cubicles, teams into silos, and decisions into oblivion. This way of workingis not working. The The Collaboration Equation draws from a lifetime of building collaborative systems, helping individuals be professionals, teams take pride in their work, and companies be resilient. This dynamic guide to working together shares insightful case studies, practical coaching, and helps readers build a real culture, design real processes, and to create real collaborative systems that people enjoy working in. You will be able to build visual systems where people can see their work . You will be able to create cultures with a Right Environment so they can mind their system . And you will create an organization where your individuals truly work in teams to create value . Your professionals, your company, and you will act with confidence. Without fail, every well-run endeavor has involved collaboration . Every real collaboration creates and maintains its own clarity. Every real collaboration has psychological safety. Every real collaboration has fearlessly shared leadership. Every real collaboration has the guts to work for real success. Individuals in teams create value. Every successful team I have ever seen operated as a team . Every successful team I have ever seen had individual professionals behaving professionally. Every successful team I have ever seen knew what success looked like . They made their quest for success visual, they talked about it regularly, their opinions were respected, and their actions were appreciated. Practical collaborative work creates its own rewards, its own psychological safety, its own agency, and its own quality control. Intentional collaboration creates a right environment where all professionals can operate to their highest potential. Professional collaboration abhors defects, hidden issues, and poor communication. In business, we have a choice; we can make things better or we can languish is costly mediocrity. Sometimes the paths to better look blocked by immovable objects, but there are no immovable objects in the universe. Everything has a lever, everything has a button. Collaboration finds the irresistible force. The fact is most businesses today are in the business of making just enough money to sustain their internal waste and maybe a little bit more. They make terrible decisions, build structures that invite bickering and impedance, and bring in new professionals with great promises that have poorly attempted delivery. Most businesses, but not all. Cover Acclaim For Personal Kanban Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Personal Kanban in Four Frames Table of Contents Foreword: The Agony of Crisis Management Introduction: Personal Kanban: 100% New Age Free 1. The Basics of Personal Kanban Towards a More Personal Kanban Rules for a System That Abhors Rules Why Visualize Your Work: Navigate Safely Why Limit Your WIP Why Call it Personal Kanban How to Use This Book Pkflow Tips 2. Building Your First Personal Kanban Step One: Get Your Stuff Ready Step Two: Establish Your Value Stream Step Three: Establish Your Backlog Step Four: Establish Your WIP Limit Step Five: Begin to Pull Step Six: Reflect Personal Kanban Power Boosters What it All Means Pkflow Tips 3. My Time Management is in League with the Freeway Flow Like Traffic Setting WIP Limits Living the Days of Our Lives Clarity Calms Carl To-do Lists: Spawns of the Devil Pkflow Tips 4. Nature Flows Flow: Work’s Natural Movement Cadence: Work’s Beat Slack: Avoiding Too Many Notes Pull, Flow, Cadence, and Slack in Action Busboy Wisdom: The Nature of Pull Pkflow Tips 5. Components of a Quality Life Metacognition: A Cure for the Common Wisdom Productivity, Efficiency, and Effectiveness Defining a Good Investment Reality Check Pkflow Tips 6. Finding Our Priorities Structure, Clarity, and Our Ability to Prioritize Smaller, Faster, Better: Prioritization in Theory and Practice Urgency & Importance Live Your Own Life Expert: Metrics In Personal Kanban Pkflow Tips 7. Strive For Improvement Clarity Conquers All The Bedrock Of Introspection Retrospectives Solving Problems At Their Source Pkflow Tips Endgame Appendix A: Personal Kanban Design Patterns Sequestering Approach: Dealing With Repetitive Tasks Emergency Response Approach: Taming Unexpected Workloads Time Capsule Approach Balanced Throughput Approach Appendix B: Personal Kanban And Social Media Facebook Twitter Blogging Acknowledgements About Jim Benson About Tonianne Demaria Barry About Modus Cooperandi More From Modus Cooperandi Press