You’re dam nice to surface bottlenecks!

Imagine a dam full of water — beneath the surface, hidden rocks and obstacles remain unseen.

But as the water level drops, these hidden dangers emerge.

The same applies to your flow of work when managed using Work in Progress (WIP) limits.

When too much work flows through a system, obstacles and bottlenecks stay buried.

By limiting Work In Progress (WIP), you lower the ‘water-level’ of your work items (epics, user stories and tasks), exposing bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and blockers that were previously hidden.

This allows your Scrum Teams to surface challenges early, improving flow and efficiency.

Just as navigating a shallow body of water requires careful adjustments, reducing Work in Progress enables smoother and more predictable flow of delivery.

In short, the most effective way to surface impediments is to reduce the Work in Progress (WIP) in the Scrum Team.