Flow in Learning: The Power of Creating Flow States for Students

Learning is about flow: we can feel it when we’re in it and it’s good for us. Remember the last time you were working on something, got deeply absorbed in and lost track of time? That’s called being in a state of flow. The study of flow states in individuals has been well described over the last 20 years by researchers at Yale and elsewhere. We use different words in different contexts to describe how flow feels. Flow states are described by athletes as being

Simon Holzapfel2024-11-25T05:11:56-07:00July 13th, 2022|Tags: education, flow, flow states, kanban board, learning|

A Comprehensive Guide to Value Stream Mapping Symbols

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a valuable tool for process managers and teams alike. The pursuit towards a lean process starts with the evaluation of the current state process and identifying wasteful activities. If you’ve seen a value stream map before, you’d know that there are many symbols used to make one. Now, don’t be scared if you haven’t done a VSM before. We have rounded up the list of value stream mapping symbols you need to know to create your own. What is Value

Lena Boiser2024-11-01T06:26:05-07:00January 27th, 2022|Tags: flowchart, lean management, lean thinking, value stream mapping, value stream mapping symbols, vsm|

3 Major Industries Where the Kanban Method Can be Used

In recent years, the application of Kanban in various industries has been receiving significant attention worldwide and the application of the method ranges from small companies even to large organizations in diverse fields. In this article, you will discover some industries where the Kanban method can be used. Before we show you some interesting practical cases, let's get a quick recap of the Kanban method and its general benefits. The term Kanban has a Japanese root meaning "signs" or "sign board". Originally designed as a

Adriano Boaron2024-05-28T16:43:44-07:00November 23rd, 2021|Tags: kanban, kanban method, lean, project management|

The Perfection Myth Busted: Why Aim for Progress Instead

When someone says you’re a perfectionist, how do you feel? If you’re like most people, I bet you’d feel proud and happy. After all, being a perfectionist means you always aim for the best in everything. But there is a caveat to always seeking perfection. You can miss out on learning opportunities because you’re too cautious in making mistakes. The pace at which you move forward can also be slower than if you don’t over-calculate and over-analyze each action you take. Mistakes help you learn

Lena Boiser2022-12-06T14:00:34-07:00November 18th, 2021|Tags: continuous improvement, perfection, progress|

Why Flow States Matter in Education

Remember the last time you were working on something, got deeply absorbed in and lost track of time? That’s called being in a state of flow. The study of flow states in individuals has been well described over the last 20 years by researchers at Yale and elsewhere. We use different words in different contexts to describe how flow feels. Flow states are described by athletes as being “in the zone.” They're described by meditators as losing a sense of self. They're described by artists as

Simon Holzapfel2024-05-28T16:28:38-07:00October 20th, 2021|Tags: education, flow, flow states, learning|

9 Kanban Values to Help Boost Business Productivity

Most teams that start looking into implementing Kanban in their organizations think that they're all set when they have a Kanban board. This thinking is far from the truth. Kanban is more than just a bunch of cards and a board. Kanban requires a solid foundation to be implemented effectively in any organization or team. Much like how you have company values for your organization, you also have Kanban values. These nine Kanban values establish the right mindset and perspective for teams that are doing

Lena Boiser2024-05-10T11:09:35-07:00October 12th, 2021|Tags: business productivity, kanban, kanban practices, kanban values|

Why You Should Implement an Efficient Workflow Visualization

While brainstorming with my team on how to implement our change management process, I found myself drawing our workflow. Nobody told me to do it. Nobody stopped me either. I drew boxes on the whiteboard to represent each step and linked those boxes through arrows as we identified the sequence. After we were satisfied with it, one of our team members took a photo of our diagram and immediately transferred our visualized workflow onto our Kanban board. We could have enumerated the process steps as

Lena Boiser2024-07-26T01:49:43-07:00July 6th, 2021|Tags: kanban, kanban board, workflow, workflow visualization|

Travel the World with this Vacation Planning Kanban board

If you are like me, I work with the goal to enjoy my well-deserved time off. I want to discover the world and travel to the best destinations. Unfortunately, I don’t prioritize my vacation planning. Instead, when it’s time to take a vacation, I simply book it. So, I only focus on that vacation, but it feels like I should be more strategic... I use Kanban for almost everything I do, so why not also for vacation planning? Follow a simple process to plan vacations

Dimitri Ponomareff2023-04-16T14:55:07-07:00May 27th, 2021|Tags: personal kanban, travel planning, vacation planning|

What are Process Bottlenecks and How to Manage Them

All organizations aim to achieve a flawless process flow. This is one reason why we have so many project management trends and approaches available. It’s just a matter of choosing one that works for your team. But no matter how you manage your project, there might have been times when you’ve encountered a problem. Maybe one of the team members was not available to complete his tasks, which caused delays to some processes and a backlog has built up. This only means one thing: you

Christine Joy Leal2024-05-16T16:28:30-07:00May 15th, 2021|Tags: process bottlenecks, process flow, project management, value stream mapping, WiP Limits|

Portfolio Kanban Benefits – How Can It Help Your Business?

Kanban boards are extremely useful visual aids to understanding workload, progress, and completion of tasks. When you understand the way that they work, you will see your tasks speed up. Business owners, project managers, and supervisors are all reading this rubbing their hands together, thinking about the speed and efficiency improvements. They may even be thinking that projects can't go too fast. The good thing is they can. You can lose sight of the bigger picture. The end goals can become fuzzy memories when trying

Steve Gecko2022-12-07T12:58:53-07:00March 11th, 2021|Tags: benefits of kanban, kanban, kanban board, portfolio kanban|

Learning Educational Agile Framework

Kanban applied to Education is a great way to improve the way to learn, teach and collaborate. We partnered with L-EAF: Learning - Educational Agility Framework by offering both our software and Kanban expertise. We provide the online framework to help educational systems in continuously improving the way to learn. Teachers, students and parents collaborate online through Kanban cards to ensure transparency and clarity on the curriculum. Districts institutions and faculties can streamline their processes by visualizing and simplifying their way of working.

Dimitri Ponomareff2024-10-16T16:02:24-07:00February 8th, 2021|

7 Reasons Why Effective Team Meetings are Important

Meetings are part and parcel of every organization. It’s a way for employees to gather, exchange ideas, share feedback, and learn from each other. But team meetings also get a bad rep. Not everyone comes ecstatic to a meeting. Most of the time employees even dread the thought of team meetings. But this is because they don’t see the benefit of it and it’s probably because of how the meetings are held. If you’re having meetings for meeting’s sake then you’re wasting everyone’s time including

Lena Boiser2024-07-31T00:04:08-07:00October 20th, 2020|Tags: employee engagement, kanban, team meetings|

15 Must-Have Productivity Tools for Your Remote Team

2020 has forced the entire globe to work remotely. It has also made everyone realize that remote work actually works. But remote work is not all rainbows and unicorns. It’s a challenging feat to pull off. Managing a distributed team can be difficult to wrap your head around. But if you have the right productivity tools in your arsenal, you can foster an empowering, rewarding, and effective remote work environment for your team. While you will see many remote productivity tools in the web, we’ve

Lena Boiser2024-04-28T01:30:08-07:00October 16th, 2020|Tags: productivity, productivity apps, remote work|

8 Ways You Can Use Kanban to Organize Your Life

Maintaining organization in your life is a huge challenge. In one way or another, there will always be something in need of order. If you are finding it hard to keep everything in your life less chaotic and more organized, then it’s about time that you apply a system that will help you keep track of all the things you need to do along with some tools that will help make it easy for you to organize your life. One of these organizational systems is

Christine Joy Leal2024-05-10T11:35:26-07:00September 29th, 2020|Tags: kanban board, organization, personal kanban, visual project management|

To Commit or Not to Commit: A Tale of Commitment Points in Kanban

In knowledge-based work such as software development, the act of committing to work can be daunting. Teams will likely encounter changing requirements or priorities when working on complex and fast-changing projects such as software development. How can you become more confident when committing to delivering work in uncertain situations? Using Kanban commitment points allow teams to manage uncertainty and improve predictability in their workflow. Let’s discover more about what these Kanban commitment points are and how to use them. What are Commitment Points in Kanban?

Lena Boiser2024-05-16T17:25:05-07:00August 20th, 2020|Tags: commitment points, discovery kanban, kanban, upstream kanban|

Effective Time Management Tips for Professionals

Professionals in various lines of work understand the importance of managing time. It is one of the most important resources for businesses. That is why many organizations are willing to spend their money and effort to make sure that everyone in their team is using their time wisely. From providing training to using time management tools, an organization can take advantage of different methods to manage time better. And if you are a professional who would like to make the most of your time, these

Christine Joy Leal2022-12-09T13:11:43-07:00March 24th, 2020|Tags: increased productivity, kanban for productivity, time management|

Wedding Planning

Just got engaged? Congratulations! After she says “YES!” it’s time to plan for your big day using our Wedding Planning Template. Now we know that planning a wedding requires real hard work. After all, you don’t want your big day to pass by as any other day, don’t you? Plus, there can be a lot of details that go into pulling off a wedding and you may feel overwhelmed on how and where to start. While the level of work will depend on how

Dimitri Ponomareff2024-09-17T18:09:20-07:00March 17th, 2020|

Kanban for Marketing: Run Multiple Projects More Efficiently

Kanban has been around for several decades, but it was adapted for knowledge work several years ago. The methodology has been tried-and-tested in many industries and eagerly adopted by different departments such as IT and operations. So it’s no wonder other departments and teams, such as sales and marketing are increasingly interested in Kanban. The instant benefits of using Kanban like the transparent overview of all ongoing projects, streamlined workflow, and clearly prioritized tasks seem to be just what marketing teams have been missing the

Ivana Sarandeska2024-04-05T04:42:06-07:00March 10th, 2020|Tags: continuous improvement, increased productivity, kanban for marketing, project management, visual project management|

Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma Lean Six Sigma is a discipline of creating customer value efficiently with quality and consistency. It is a process improvement methodology that focuses on removing waste and controlling process variation to improve efficiency and provide high levels of customer value. Lean Six Sigma combines the tools and techniques of Lean and Six Sigma. To better understand Lean Six Sigma, let’s discuss the Lean methodology and Six Sigma and how these two form a supercharged process improvement technique when combined. What is

Lena Boiser2024-05-07T19:56:12-07:00February 28th, 2020|

Best Collaboration Tools for Remote Teams

The way we work is evolving. We are living in a time when technology empowers us to work from anywhere, any time. More companies are embracing remote work and tapping the global talent pool to strengthen their workforce. Remote work is no longer the future but is the norm. Companies are realizing that offering more flexible working arrangements allow them to attract and keep the best talent. But building a remote team is no easy feat. The best remote teams are defined by the strength

Lena Boiser2024-06-04T16:50:31-07:00February 18th, 2020|Tags: efficiency, productivity, remote teams, teamwork|