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Intro to Flow
Rating: 5.0 out of 5(2 ratings)
468 students

Intro to Flow

These lessons provide the essential insights into how to increase your productivity or your team's productivity today!
Created byMike Lyons
Last updated 8/2025
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • Understand Flow
  • Introduction to Kanban
  • Multitasking exercise
  • Learn about WIP & WIP Limits
  • The truth about Task Switching

Course content

1 section • 9 lectures • 36m total length

  • What is Flow?2:35

    Explore how systems optimize flow by managing capacity and batch sizes, from traffic lanes and token-based garden entry to express checkout, highlighting strategies that maximize throughput.

  • The 5 Time Thieves5:58

    Identify the five time thieves—unplanned work, conflicting priorities, unknown dependencies, neglected work, and too much work in progress—and use kanban, timeboxing, and prioritization to boost throughput and shorten lead times.

  • Intro to Kanban4:38

    Kanban emphasizes flow over time boxes, using a visible Kanban board and WIP limits to smooth work, reveal bottlenecks, and align with the theory of constraints.

  • What are WIP & WIP Limits?3:26

    Maximize flow by setting work in progress limits (WIP) and visualizing from backlog to done on a Kanban board, delivering small, incremental value through focused developer and tester work.

  • Identifying Dependencies and Blockers5:52

    Identify and manage dependencies and blockers across cross-functional teams, using program boards and kanban to visualize and reduce delays through cross-skilling and dependency reviews.

  • Task Switching1:28

    Improve flow by using smaller batches, limiting work in progress, and making work visible on a kanban board, increasing flow by focusing on one task until completion.

  • Task Switching Exercise5:54

    Debunk the multitasking myth by illustrating task switching costs, staying focused in a flow state, and boosting speed, quality, and team performance.

  • Manage Delivery and the System, Not People4:25

    Shift from managing people to managing the system, creating an environment where teams self-manage within boundaries and adopt decentralized management with shared goals, automated testing, continuous planning, and system metrics.

  • Conclusion2:28

Requirements

  • Ne experience needed, other than a willingness to make your life easier by understanding how work flows

Description

Mastering Personal and Team Productivity: A Practical Approach

Are you struggling to get things done? Feeling overwhelmed by endless tasks and constant interruptions? This power-packed mini-course cuts through the noise to deliver practical, science-backed techniques that will transform how you work.

In these focused lessons, you'll discover the secrets to unlocking your peak productivity potential. We start by diving deep into the concept of "Flow" - that magical state where work feels effortless and time flies by. You'll learn how to create the perfect conditions for achieving flow and how to protect it once you're there.

Next, we tackle one of the biggest productivity killers: too much work-in-progress (WIP). Through hands-on examples, you'll understand why limiting your WIP is crucial and how to set practical boundaries that keep you focused and efficient. This naturally leads into our Kanban lesson, where you'll learn how to visualize your work and manage it more effectively using this powerful tool from the agile world.

The course takes a fascinating turn as we explore the costly truth about task switching - something many people mistake for productivity. Through real-world scenarios, you'll see why jumping between tasks is more expensive than you think. The highlight of the course is our eye-opening multitasking exercise, which will forever change how you think about "doing it all at once."

Each lesson is designed to deliver immediate value, with techniques you can apply the very same day. Whether you're an individual contributor looking to boost your personal productivity or a team leader aiming to enhance your group's effectiveness, these lessons provide the foundation for lasting improvement.

This mini-course also serves as a perfect introduction to our comprehensive Agile Foundations program. You'll get a taste of our teaching style, practical approach, and the transformative power of agile principles in action.

Perfect for:

  • Busy professionals seeking practical productivity tools

  • Team leaders wanting to boost their team's efficiency

  • Anyone feeling overwhelmed by their workload

  • Individuals curious about agile methodologies

  • Those looking to sample our teaching approach before diving into Agile Foundations

Join us for this productivity journey and start seeing results from day one. No complex theories - just practical, proven techniques that work in the real world.

Who this course is for:

  • Everyone who wants to make work easier

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