One of the killers on software development projects is Work-In-Progress. We have learned from the Lean experts and from the teachings on the Toyota Production System that too much work-in-progress is a liability. Just yesterday I was asked to spot the problem with a sister company's task board. Sure enough one developer had 5 or 6 "in-progress" tasks on the task board. It took me a split second to notice.

The problem with this situation is that as a developer if you're working on more than two tasks, simultaneously your productivity takes a dive. Additionally you're going to end up with many unfinished tasks that never get completed. This is a classic problem in Waterfall where tasks have half-lives are in the order of man months. The more tasks in play at any given time, the more tasks that never get finished.



The most interesting quote from the Lean conference shared by Sterling Mortensen that really hit home for me:

"Stop Starting, Start Finishing" could not be more apt.

I believe this goes hand in hand with the definition of DONE that all the Agile thought