Milk Kanban

https://brodzinski.com/2025/03/milk-kanban.html

435 166 1 year ago

bob1029• 1 year ago

In its original meaning, Kanban represented a visual signal. The thing that communicated, well, something. It might have been a need, option, availability, capacity, request, etc.
the system is self-explanatory

I've always known of this as an "affordance" - An available & apparent interaction between an object and its user.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

ricardobeat2• 1 year ago

There is definitely a connection there, but affordance is a concept specific to interaction design and something having a physically self-evident purpose (handles, buttons, levers, knobs, etc).

flail17• 1 year ago

That's a great analogy!

On the one hand, the context is different. An affordance, as you point out, signals how we should use an item. In a way, it suggests a meaning. A kanban's meaning is typically defined as the process (largely) is known.

In the story about Milk Kanban, the index card is self-explanatory, but that's just an extra bit, to make the process more bullet-proof.

On the other hand, if we generalize both examples, we land in a place where the design (of things, of processes) should communicate how to act. I either interact with an object or I do my action within a process.

BTW: The Design of Everyday Things is another great reading recommendation in this thread.

renewiltord• 1 year ago

I like the trash bag bunches where the last three have a little tag on them that say “you’re running low”. Similar system. Very useful.

uhoh-itsmaciek• 1 year ago

Or thermal receipt tape with a stripe of color near the end.

hbarka• 1 year ago

Event triggers.

CityOfThrowaway• 1 year ago

Another thing I really like about Kasia's milk system is that it is a zero-emotional overhead communication. Just take the ticket and put it on her desk, and all will be handled.

devenson• 1 year ago

Depends how far away her desk is.

woleium• 1 year ago

Yeah, I think i would make it “put this card in the reorder box”

flail17• 1 year ago

For all but 4 people, it's on the way to their own desks.

I bet that when someone just drops the card on the kitchen table, someone else would carry it to Kasia. As far as I know, dropping the card has never happened.

Nonetheless, the comment is spot on. If people needed to go far from their regular tracks, it might have been less reliable. Good system design means that doing the right thing is the easy/easiest thing.

eacapeisfutuile• 1 year ago

First install truck horns, and have that go off for the dev being assigned a ticket.

nextts2• 1 year ago

It is not an interruption, or a new todo. That's what makes it elegant.

A bad system is a slack message once you get back to your desk.

thuanao• 1 year ago

In other words, issue tracker todo/doing/done lists have nothing to do with kanban.

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

They do if your "doing" list has a line on it that prohibits/allows more tasks to start

ramses02• 1 year ago

There's a field of study called "mechanism design"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design

...you have to squint a bit, but I've taken it to mean influencing the behavior of unknown or mildly uncooperative participants.

My main example of success was drawing a dotted line with a sharpie about 25% from the bottom of the water filter pitcher in the fridge (back with college roommates).

Basically overnight, the probability of me finding the water pitcher empty in the fridge went from 50% to like 10%.

The visual indicator (with only implied instructions) resulted in positive behavior changes.

Related is "poke-yoke/kaizen" of "mistake proofing, continual improvement, and making problems visible".

Being aware of these fields of study and their techniques can be applied to many areas in work and home.

exitb• 1 year ago

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not convinced it’s a good one. Office managers (or any kind of managers, really) are hired to remove a class of problems, so other people can focus on their job. This is outsourcing bits and pieces of your responsibilities to random coworkers. That being said, none of it is uncommon in modern corporate workplace.

daveguy2• 1 year ago

Kasia, the person who placed the note and requests its return, is the office manager. Giving someone an easy visual cue and task for keeping things running smoothly seems like great office manager work and organization rather than shirking any type of responsibility.

mystifyingpoi3• 1 year ago

Agree. I dig the idea, really cool, but quoting the article:

it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then

If freaking glancing into the shelf once a day (or more like once a week, because this milk has months of shelf life) in scope of full time office manager job is "a pain", maybe that office manager should rethink their employment there.

analog312• 1 year ago

>> maybe that office manager should rethink their employment there.

A near-universal feature of office managers is that they are continually rethinking their employment.

daveguy2• 1 year ago

Or maybe if putting a piece of paper on someone's desk for precise restocking is too much of "a pain" to the person who drank the milk, then they should rethink their employment there.

CraigJPerry• 1 year ago

That’s all the more reason to go event driven right?

If the milk needed replenishing more often, maybe polling the shelf makes more sense - hey the rate of consumption is higher today, I’ll re-order early. That high throughput optimisation doesn’t really shake out if you’re always just waiting for the replenishment event to fire.

ctm922• 1 year ago

If its only milk, then this polling might work. But might be also coffee, printer paper, pencils, whatever and you end up doing nothing else than checking shelves all day

flail17• 1 year ago

Wow! This escalated quickly.

In this whole sub-thread, I see quite a lot of signals along the lines of: - that's someone else's job, I shouldn't be bothered - I'm doing valuable work, others should make it easy for me - (all sorts of) managers are to make some problems inexistent for me

I'm not saying that's all in the original thread, but I read such sentiment.

So here's something that we do that may be unusual.

We respect everyone's roles and work. As much as Kasia wouldn't jump on a project as a developer, none of our developers would take her seat and handle all the stuff she deals with daily. Heck, she routinely helps people dealing with all sorts of paperwork that, especially for foreigners, are major pain in the butt. Which is "funny" because it's just "simple paperwork anyone could do."

And before someone throws at me that anyone can order milk online, that's like a hundredth priority or something like that.

Anyway, starting from a place where we all respect each other and everyone's work, dropping an index card on someone's desk on the way to one's own is a non-issue.

I acknowledge, though, that in an environment where people don't respect others' work because whatever (they have a less prestigious role, they're paid less, etc.), folks may totally perceive that a problem.

And yes, establishing such respect is so much harder than making sure that milk is in a frigging cupboard.

mystifyingpoi3• 1 year ago

Wow, 3.2 and 2% milk available in the same office? Where do I apply?

datadrivenangel• 1 year ago

3.2% is just whole milk.

meindnoch• 1 year ago

Cigarette rolling paper comes in a flat pack, from which you take the papers one by one, like a box of Kleenex. Towards the bottom of the pack, there's gonna be an odd-colored piece of paper, after which there still gonna be 10 pieces left in the box. The odd-colored paper tells you that it's time to buy a new pack, but you still have 10 cigarettes' worth.

Edit: found a photo of this phenomenon on r/antiassholedesign https://www.reddit.com/r/antiassholedesign/comments/cfndfa/g...

dhosek• 1 year ago

The practice of having a slip that read “Five leaves left” was where Nick Drake got the title for his first album (somewhat eerily recorded five years before his death).

locusofself• 1 year ago

One of the best albums ever IMO, just finished the excellent biography that came out a couple years ago by Richard Morton Jack

y33t2• 1 year ago

I've begun to notice the number five a lot. I was reading Tammy Wynette's wiki page the other day and noticed that it appears quite a bit -- born May 5th (5/5), married five times, dead at 55. She also collaborated with the KLF, a pop group from the early 90's which also had an unusual number of fives to do with them (as well as 23's...2+3=5? Oddly, Tammy has a memorial highway in Missippi, MS23). Which brings me back around to Nick Drake. One of the members of the KLF now runs a small web store which mostly just sells his books to do with his post-KLF career, but they also sell other things as well, like overstock Nick Drake album tuck boxes...which are designed to hold all five of Nick Drake's albums.

https://www.alimentation.cc/product/tuck-box/

Not sure what any of this means.

Edit: just noticed that I responded to your post five hours after you posted it.

cameronh90• 1 year ago

One of the episodes of The Simpsons I saw as a kid that had a surprisingly large impact on how I think was where Willie had cameras in all of the bathrooms to monitor if they needed the toilet roll changed: “That roll of towels is nearin' its end! She's on double red stripe!”

kaffekaka• 1 year ago

I absolutely did read this in Willies voice.

gwern2• 1 year ago

"Bye Bye Nerdie", S12E16, 2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Bye_Nerdie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4rbW96R5GM https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/qhy6bi/that_ro...

castillar762• 1 year ago

The toilet paper we buy now comes in individually-wrapped (paper wrapping) rolls, and several rolls in every box are wrapped in bright red paper. Those rolls have the suggestion printed on them that you put them towards the bottom of the pile in the bathroom so that when you reach for a new roll and the one you pull out is wrapped in red paper, you know it's time to go get more from the box. It's a clever design, although it does somewhat rely on people remembering to order the rolls that way when putting them in the cabinet...

ctm922• 1 year ago

Receipt paper rolls also have this: When the roll is near the end there are pink stripes, telling the cashier to have a new roll nearby as the printer is about to run out of paper

xbryanx• 1 year ago

SimpleHuman trashbags do the same thing. When you pull the 5th last bag, it has a big tag reminding you to order more.

polishdude20• 1 year ago

Certain dog poop bags have this but they have a sticker about three bags left that says "three bags left"

throwaway7783• 1 year ago

I think this is now a common pattern. Simplehuman trash bag boxes have a tag that says "you are running low", on the 10th (or so) bag from last.

ruraljuror• 1 year ago

My first thought as well. Simplehuman, whose products and designs I admire, also include QR codes to reorder on the reminder and a refrigerator magnet included with the trashcan.

jldugger• 1 year ago

I just put a few at the bottom of the trashcan, so when the box runs out I still have some time to buy a new supply.

islewis• 1 year ago

I recently noticed that there was a "Time to order" message written on the outside of the cardboard core of my saran wrap. The visibility to the core became clearer as the wrap was consumed- giving both a sense of urgency, as well as not letting you forget. I thought it was pretty clever.

celticninja4• 1 year ago

Phenomenon makes it sound rare, this is standard in all packs of skins

7bit2• 1 year ago

The tricky part is that when you don’t drink milk yourself, it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then to ensure we’re stocked.

If checking the milk reserves once a day is too much of a pain for a person hired as an office manager, the person should self-reflect on his/her choice to take the job.

ricardobeat2• 1 year ago

What if there are eight floors with two pantries each, four types of milk, five other drinks, plus seven different snacks that need replacing. They'd spend the entire day peeking at fridges and cupboards.

This is why in places like I just described, you often have a shortage of particular items; the checks happen only every so often and usually by multiple cleaning employees. On the other hand, it's also exactly why Kanban came to existence, to solve a very similar problem in manufacturing.

This particular example feels weird because your job is not to drink milk, but in theory it should work and allow you to have just-in-time replenished stock for everything.

7bit2• 1 year ago

Typically you combine that with other householding tasks. If you don't visit the kitchen or pantry daily as an office manager, you're doing something wrong. And walking through 8 floors with 2 pantries doesn't take that long either. I don't really think expanding o. The example makes a better case for the article...

jrootabega2• 1 year ago

While this can be mitigated somewhat by keeping backups on hand, the card helps because it gives you a convenient record of needing to restock, which you can just drop somewhere you know it will be used. Even in personal life that might be a good idea. Dropping an empty box of pasta or dental floss on the ground also serves as a convenient reminder, but it's harder to do with a can of tuna.

mariocesar• 1 year ago

It's a shame that some comments in the original post are so toxic and unwelcoming. There are plenty of empathetic people on HN. Well HN is welcome if at least when the topic isn't website standards or a page failing to load in some commenter obscure browser.

jimnotgym3• 1 year ago

When people say Kanban, they tend to think of a specific set of practices. Whiteboards & sticky notes (both almost universally virtual).

When software developers say Kanban, they tend to think of whiteboards. For anyone who works in manufacturing they would have thought about replenishment first. It is completely ubiquitous anywhere where taking something from a location signals a need for replenishment.These days it is often virtually, where an ERP sees an order taking something below some level, triggering purchase or manufacture of a replacement.

I understand the literal translation of Kanban is 'coloured badge' btw

eikenberry• 1 year ago

I've worked on multiple Kanban software dev teams and a whiteboard never came into play, vs. the scrum or extreme-agile teams which loved them. Kanban seems more about having tickets organized into a priority ordered queue of tasks.

flail17• 1 year ago

That is an interesting observation.

The first two (and I would say key) practices of Kanban (as a method) are: - visualize work(flow) - limit work in progress

So I wonder, how did these Kanban teams visualize work exactly?

Now, I don't say the whiteboard (virtual or physical) is the only way to do it, yet it's almost ubiquitous.

Aurornis2• 1 year ago

I've worked on multiple Kanban software dev teams and a whiteboard never came into play,

Most teams don’t literally use a physical whiteboard, they use some software that represents the whiteboard.

Do an image search for “Kanban board” and you’ll get a mix of physical whiteboards and software dashboards that imitate the same columnar style.

Though one thing about software development practices is that names have become nearly meaningless as people have adopted different variations. I worked at one company recently that proudly bragged about their “agile methodology” but also demanded everything be planned 6-9 months in advance and made a big deal about tracking metrics for sprint accuracy and failure to complete tickets on time (including too early!).

galaxyLogic6• 1 year ago

So in terms of SW development would that mean we have slips saying "Only 5 Tasks left, come up with new ones"?

pdpi• 1 year ago

Only 10% disk space left. Peak memory usage at 90% available RAM. $CRITICAL_PACKAGE version update has been available for 2 months.

Once you see the pattern, it can be used all over the place: Pre-programmed proactive reminders for all sorts of upkeep chores that you don't want to spend mental bandwidth on.

anymouse1234565• 1 year ago

The central idea is that traditional manufacturing (and software) environments attempt to PUSH work through the system. This leads to tons of unintended consequences that ultimately sacrifices quality and throughput. Not only defeating the purpose of applying the pressure, but also (sometimes) destroying the reputation of the organizations that do it.

The observation of the Toyota Production System, was that we should make quality non-negotiable and then observe the system that emerges.

We let the system PULL work through it, rather than attempting to PUSH. In this way, we can make observations and improvements without applying negative pressure (that results in waste) on any given work center. Raw materials are only released into the process when the previous batch has nearly been consumed, regardless of some manager's desires.

The insight of early Agile practices, was that we might be able to use Stories as a metaphor for Raw Materials and the system we're working within converts those raw materials into something valuable to the customers and/or business.

There are a number of good reasons this metaphor doesn't fit perfectly, but one of the biggest ones is that while both manufacturing and software development can be creative processes, software development represents a much higher percentage of creative work than operating a cell in a generally well-defined production process.

The Kanban boards in Software Workflows were originally intended to make visible the actual throughput of a team, and help us resist releasing new stories into production if the team hasn't yet digested the previous set.

I've definitely seen environments that use these tools with little to no comprehension as to where (or why) they came from and I suspect that has become more of the norm as I've withdrawn into my own little corner of the universe.

If any of this sounds interesting, I highly recommend the book, "The Goal"

lotyrin• 1 year ago

It's closer to "sign" or a bit more specifically "signboard".

flail17• 1 year ago

That's true. The notion of what Kanban is differs between knowledge work (stemming mostly from software development adaptations) and manufacturing.

Since my context is primarily IT I made some simplifications when describing the context.

Admittedly, the principles are the same. However, because of the differences in the nature of the work, different areas are stressed. A notable example is how differently "removing waste" is considered between IT and manufacturing.

Anyway, yes, whiteboards and sticky notes are staple artifacts of software development/knowledge work context. "Old-school" (since it started decades earlier there) manufacturing is much more creative with designing visual signals.

On the other hand, knowledge work typically handles uncertainty and variability of work way better. That stems from a different type of process (more creative, less repeatable) and unique nature of each individual task.

jimnotgym3• 1 year ago

On the other hand, knowledge work typically handles uncertainty and variability of work way better.

I am not sure that is true, they are very different but I wouldn't say one handles it better.

One of the factories in involved in builds to order on a short lead time. We produce 2500 machines a day, from a wide range with many configuration options. There are various sub assemblies that have to be built first. On any given day there will be shortages on various components, meaning we can't build what we want. There will be quality issues with materials meaning reworks and changes in process. There will be design up-issues to address material changes, firmware problems, or customer demands. There are 400+ people to coordinate. This is all done whilst still shipping 99.9% within the lead time. We don't know anything for certain about our demand in 10 days time. It seems much more complex and adaptable to me than when I ran a software team

thaumasiotes• 1 year ago

I understand the literal translation of Kanban is 'coloured badge' btw

看板 - 看 "look at; watch", 板 "board; plank".

For the Japanese word, https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E7%9C%8B%E6%9D%BF has "看板 - signboard; billboard" (and also "hoarding", "draw; attraction", and "closing time").

xtracto• 1 year ago

My wife has worked in manufacturing for 20 years. It's very interesting to hear all the "technologies" that they have developed: six sigma, Kanban, lean manufacturing and all that. A lot of of that really feels like REAL engineering. Vs "sprint review" and "retrospective" crap we deal with in software.

brightball2• 1 year ago

Lean applies to software probably more than any other methodology in my opinion.

The simple practice of aggressively removing waste in all of your processes offers more benefit than anything else. The result of that is often closer to a much more simplified kanban system in my experience as well.

somat• 1 year ago

It is a subject that bothers me far more than it should, but when I was first exposed to the term kanban I naturally look it up and go "what on earth does any of this have to do with software?"

The term refers to a method to attach the logistical back pressure mechanism to the logistical items in question, basically distributing it to solve the problems of large central control. However the logistics of software development is very different, Software is mostly research and development with close to zero manufacturing and parts logistics. You would have to model each software feature as a one off custom item with a long lead time. and that is not what the kanban system is good at. Why do you need back pressure control when each item is a one-off?

So software developers came up with a system that works well for them, but instead of giving it it's own name they reused the name from a manufacturing system. thus leading to endless confusion.

celticninja4• 1 year ago

You would think that, but swap manufacturing and parts logistics for user design and content, so a new feature is designed, then content is written for it, then it is implemented. Each step requires the one before it.

maxekman• 1 year ago

I can recommend reading “The Phoenix Project”.

flail17• 1 year ago

It wasn't just coming up with a system that works for software and taking a cool name from manufacturing processes.

The methods in IT were built on the same principles (and, to a degree, values). It's just the implementation is different. In fact, in software, we emulate some things that are given in manufacturing. A notable example is making work visible. On a factory floor, piles of parts are clearly visible. The code in progress is not. Thus, we have index cards representing queues of work (piles of incomplete parts).

The approach to limiting work in progress is actually the same. Again, the solutions differ (replenishment triggered by visual cards in manufacturing versus numerical WIP limits on visual boards in software), but the outcome remains very similar.

There are differences, of course. The big one is how we react to variability. While in manufacturing, we, well, manufacture a lot of identical things, in software, each item is different. Thus, on a factory floor, we aim to control and reduce variability, while in software, we tend to accept and work around it.

There are other differences in flavor, too. Like in knowledge work we don't stress too much about waste reduction, while in manufacturing, it's a big theme, etc.

However, if we look at the ideas and not specific implementations, these systems are very similar. And I'm saying it as someone who trained people in that domain both in knowledge work and manufacturing.

Not that any of this helps with confusion in the naming. Even less so given the fact that some people are arguing the seemingly fundamental differences between using kanban (lowercase k) and Kanban (capital K). I guess people are people.I don't much care. As long as someone can explain what they mean by it, I'm fine with whatever naming they come up with.

OJFord• 1 year ago

So software developers came up with a system that works well for them, but instead of giving it it's own name they reused the name from a manufacturing system. thus leading to endless confusion.

It's amusing to me, because without knowing any of this I've often felt & said that (especially scrum but kanban too) is depressing even just in the terminology used and seems designed to treat us like workers on a factory line. And lo, that is actually whence kanban at least came.

brightball2• 1 year ago

When I say Kanban, I mean "strip away all of the unnecessary processes that scrum/safe likely gave you and instead, simplify your process so you can focus on getting the work done...with a WIP limit."

Peteragain• 1 year ago

The Japanese symbols were translated by by Chinese PhD as "card to watch". Now that I think about it (the memory) I think there was something participatory in it? "the card for watching" perhaps? "The card for noticing"? The software use of the term certainly feels like it misses the point as used in manufacturing.

wodenokoto• 1 year ago

I understand the literal translation of Kanban is 'coloured badge' btw

No, it's "signboard" or "billboard".

https://jisho.org/word/%E7%9C%8B%E6%9D%BF

Kwpolska• 1 year ago

The system seems inefficient, as the sticky notes look the same. So Kasia has to go to the cupboard and check what to buy.

jason_oster• 1 year ago

Solution: The specific brand is written on the back of the card.

pavon• 1 year ago

They probably want to check anyway to see if anything else is getting low (or ran out because a note wasn't delivered) to decrease the number of restocking orders placed. The notes just help indicate when an order needs to be placed earlier than expected.

flail17• 1 year ago

The order typically runs with not just milk but all the supplies. It's just the "going out of milk" trigger happens most frequently.

And yes, using different kinds/colors of cards for different kinds of milk might have been an improvement to consider. It would, however, make the system more complicated. Was it me, I'd start with a simpler design and iterate only when I saw the need.

It follows the rule of thumb: make it as simple as possible.

greatgib5• 1 year ago

The milk example looks very stupid in my opinion.

Something more efficient would be something like this:

- there is a closet in the kitchen with extra supplies: milk, sugar, ...

- Kasia goes in the kitchen once per week to do the inventory of remaining supplies. If items <= 1, then she order new extra items for each low in quantity supplies...

carreau2• 1 year ago

I feel like you are confusing "more efficient" with "more convenient for me when I use milk because I think the secretary is my maid".

greatgib5• 1 year ago

more efficient and convenient for both in the end. Imagine the burden to have to put a postit on all products, to manage them on your desk, to stack them and remember to count them to reorder. Also because you will not pass your order item by item, like just ordering milk and then sugar 2 days later...

darkwater• 1 year ago

Which is exactly what most spoiled children^W^W tech workers think of them, unfortunately.

jonahx3• 1 year ago

Your proposal probably is an improvement (though there may be some reason it's not feasible in this case -- no closet in the kitchen, etc), but calling the original idea "very stupid" is quite the ungenerous overstatement. It's still clever, still works much better than not having it at all, and is only slightly less efficient that what you're proposing.

greatgib5• 1 year ago

If you don't have a closet, it's even easier, everything will be outside in plain sight. So the office manager just need a minute passing by the kitchen to see what would have to be ordered.

In a ideal world where items could be ordered immediately individually, maybe it could have some value, but in that case you might as easily have an app or a shared excel with employees reporting what is running out.

But in a real world, things will be ordered in batch at a specific and fixed frequency time.

greatgib5• 1 year ago

And I say that it is stupid because from my point of view, you bring a very complex and time costly solution to something that could be solved a lot more simply and efficiently.

Very sadly it is a pattern that we see very commonly in current day software world. Like using Langchain for doing requests to openai, in llm world, and big company hiring expensive consulting firms to tell them what any low level employee in the firm could have told them.

pfix• 1 year ago

Why is this more efficient?

jonahx3• 1 year ago

Batching.

galaxyLogic6• 1 year ago

In the office I worked it was never an issue that we were out of milk. It was that people brought in their own milk cartoons and put them in the fridge, so others could have milk too. Nice. Thanks to whoever brought it!

But then nobody removed that cartoon from fridge so it started to stink, and remained in the fridge still. Then no-one in particual was eager to tackle the bad smell, it definitely was not their job.

ramses02• 1 year ago

I implemented the "three sticker rule" at my office. Every Friday, put a neon dot sticker on _everything_ in the fridge. Instead of putting a fourth sticker on anything, throw it out.

Because "anyone could do it", it usually ends up that "no one does it".

galaxyLogic6• 1 year ago

Sounds good, "THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT".

But would it not mean that sometimes you had 3 weeks old milk in the fridge? :-)

nextts2• 1 year ago

I like the idea of a "cartoon" also meaning an expired carton.

zopa• 1 year ago

And it’s a healthy wake-up call when someone who knows close to nothing about our fancy stuff designs a system that we would unlikely think of.

I can't tell if the author asked Kasia how she came up with the idea? For all we know she's doing an MBA in the evenings and just wrote a paper on the history of just-in-time manufacturing in the Japanese auto industry.

crusty• 1 year ago

Is there even a Kasia, or did the author print out that note to establish her invented character just for the benefit of her blog's narrative? Does it really matter?

flail17• 1 year ago

Oh, there is a real Kasia. Although she's a person of many talents, I would be genuinely surprised if she spent evenings studying Japanese management methods.

The solution she designed, however, is as if she already knew all of that part of the MBA program :)

Which shows how significant parts of these methods have roots in basic awareness and perceptiveness to how the work gets done. Lean/Agile only codified some of these good practices. Unfortunately, they also petrified a lot of specific techniques. But that's another story.

layer8• 1 year ago

This is a form of artifacts as reminders: https://pim.famnit.upr.si/wp/?p=288

blackeyeblitzar• 1 year ago

I don’t know much about kanban but doesn’t this basically create work for others to bring the milk paper back? I can see how this works and is efficient in a way, but it removes the work for the person to monitor the milk stock.

weaksauce• 1 year ago

sure it creates some work for someone that is invested in getting more milk for their coffee. hardly onerous and removes a lot of daily checking for the purchaser.

flail17• 1 year ago

If we look at it from the systemic perspective, the goal is to have enough milk at the office just in time.

Balancing the tasks between different actors within the system is a different concern.

If 30 seconds of my time saves someone else 10 minutes, it may be a good tradeoff, even if my time costs a few times more.

On one of the most effective teams I worked on, there was a tech lead who would throw himself into a role based on the team's needs based on insight from a morning daily. Most of the time, he played his strongest suit (back-end). However, there were days when he was helping with the most menial front-end tasks (he wasn't super-effective at that) or testing (same).

Was he efficient? If we look at him in isolation, then no. But because his work helped to remove bottlenecks and unblock the team, the whole team was more effective thanks to him.

What is interesting in some of the discussion threads here is how people look at the process effectiveness in a completely reverse way. Sometimes, they focus on their individual efficiency as if they were able to deliver value singlehandedly. Individual efficiency doesn't mean much.

A typical example would be a developer who's super efficient, but there's no one to do a code review (or test or whatever) just in time. By the time they get a list of issues to fix, they don't remember the context, they wrote so much more stuff relying on the things that they need to redo, etc.

Their efficiency would mainly be regarding coding in isolation. While the effectiveness would be measured in what the team could release/deliver to the clients.

As per Drucker's famous quote: "There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all."

numpad0• 1 year ago

but it removes the work for the person to monitor the milk stock.

Why is that supposed to be a problem? It's not like the person to monitor the milk stock belong to subhuman classes and doing work for them tarnishes your karma. In fact, in many tiny companies, it's more likely to be managers themselves doing non-scaling housewife like tasks. Less janitorial work for the boss and more time for executive tasks is good.

smusamashah2• 1 year ago

It should be as simple as possible (but not simpler)

I have seen this phrase a number of times. What does it mean?

askvictor• 1 year ago

Any simpler and it would not be effective for it's intended purpose?

smusamashah2• 1 year ago

Oh! So 'any simpler and...' was the next statement being implied by 'but not simpler' in this phrase. I can make sense of it now.

flail17• 1 year ago

There is a level of oversimplification beyond which the solution stops serving its purpose.

If this discussion board was just a shared doc in which everyone could write, that might be a "too simple" solution. Basic control over one's writing is what we expect in solutions such as this.

With Milk Kanban, it might have been just asking people to tell Kasia when they take the last carton. Would it be a simpler solution? Yes. Would it work? Well, I guess there is a reason why we do have these index cards.

Warwolt• 1 year ago

It's a quote that originated as a paraphrase of Einstein about applying Occam's razor to development of scientific theories.

Things should be as simple as possible, with respect to your criteria. E.g. a scientific theory should posit as few objects as possible while still being able to explain all observed phenomenons.

acyou• 1 year ago

If you carry enough inventory to stock out every 6-12 months, this might a good system. If you stock out every week it might become a pain, both for notification and for reordering.

If it were me, I would have a service handle this, they bring in whatever you want and make sure it's topped up.

gverrilla• 1 year ago

I wouldn't be surprised if milk consumption on that office went down after this. Unless the table was very near, I just wouldn't take the last carton lmao.

noisy_boy• 1 year ago

A simple index card taped to the last milk carton in a row stating, “Bring me to Kasia.” That’s it.

A callback to indicate completion. Would have been better if the index card was taped to a carton towards the end, but still a few cartons remaining, to provide sufficient advance notice to restock.

RobertRoberts• 1 year ago

This system was recommended to me from an old veteran manufacturing expert that was one of the consultants on an ERP implementation. The brilliance that this brought was anyone could easily pick up the inventory and restocking process. But the people that got in the way of this were people that thought it was "dumb". One person already knew all the bits and pieces and this was just extra work. (she was leaving the company in a few months...) The people that liked this idea were the new people that were replacing the older people, and people that only worked with the inventory periodically, so didn't have ingrained knowledge. (also, the part numbers were inconsistent and many other small issues that new people struggled with)

But, the grumpy and the veterans won out, because they just didn't see the value in making a change like this. sigh

Milk Kanban

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