#97 - Personal Kanban & Collaboration Equation - Jim Benson

“A highly functional team defines the right environment and has what they need to be the best professionals they can be. And that always includes agency and psychological safety."

Jim Benson is the co-author of “Personal Kanban” and is currently working on his upcoming book “The Collaboration Equation”. In this episode, we started by discussing Personal Kanban, how it differs from a to-do list, and its two main rules, i.e. visualizing our work and limiting our work-in-progress. Jim also shared practical tips on managing our personal backlog, doing prioritization, and limiting our work in progress. In the latter half of our conversation, we discussed Jim’s new book, “The Collaboration Equation”, starting with the discussion about the common collaboration challenges and why professionalism and psychological safety are prerequisites to building high-performing teams. Jim also explained the concept of collaborative leadership and gave practical tips on how we can measure effective collaboration.

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:06:42]
• Current State of Productivity - [00:08:17]
• Obeya - [00:10:12]
• Rules of Personal Kanban - [00:12:44]
• Kanban vs Todo List - [00:14:46]
• Managing Backlog - [00:17:07]
• Limiting Work in Progress - [00:24:26]
• Collaboration Equation - [00:27:36]
• Professionalism - [00:31:06]
• Psychological Safety - [00:33:21]
• Collaborative Leadership - [00:36:39]
• Collaborative Process - [00:41:04]
• Measuring Collaboration - [00:46:09]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:09]

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Jim Benson’s Bio
Jim Benson is the CEO of Modus Cooperandi, and co-founder of Modus Institute. A pioneer in applying Lean and Kanban methodologies to knowledge work, Jim is the creator of Personal Kanban and Lean Coffee, and co-author of Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life, winner of the prestigious Shingo Research and Publication Award. His other books include Why Plans Fail, Why Limit WIP, and Beyond Agile. His upcoming book The Collaboration Equation will be out in Summer 2022.

Follow Jim:

• Twitter – @ourfounder
• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimbenson
• Modus Cooperandi – https://moduscooperandi.com/
• Modus Institute – https://modusinstitute.com/

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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/97.