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Criterion
Paper illustration of a four-column Kanban board with limited ongoing work, a visible blocker and a review loop.
Engineering
Kanban
Four paper stations connect system purpose, quality goals, risk cards and focused investigation with a target and gap profile.
Architecture
LASR (Lightweight Approach for Software Reviews)
Paper illustration for Dot Estimation.
Facilitation
Dot Estimation
Value Stream Mapping workspace showing the question, observations, and next decision.
Delivery
Value Stream Mapping
Purposedifferent
When work sits in too many parallel streams, throughput suffers and no one sees the bottlenecks. Kanban makes the flow of work visible and limits overload so a system becomes calmer and more predictable.LASR helps development teams identify where their software falls short of important quality goals and which improvements to consider. A small group with existing system knowledge can make an initial assessment and investigate open questions in more detail.When size or effort can only be estimated roughly, Dot Estimation condenses the group's experience into a quick range. It turns individual contributions into a visible selection. The result is captured as an Effort Heatmap, Risk Signals, and Discussion Targets.When delivery work dissolves into wait times, handoffs, and hidden effort, Value Stream Mapping makes the actual flow visible. The method exposes bottlenecks, idle time, and feedback loops so lead time and improvement levers become tangible.
Complexitydifferent
MediumMediumLowMedium
Timedifferent
Ongoing3–4 h for initial assessment; preparation and deeper analysis additional5-20 min1-3 h
Participantsdifferent
2-121 or a small team; particularly suitable for 3–4 people3-204-10
Formatdifferent
Workshop + asyncWorkshop + asyncWorkshopWorkshop
Outputdifferent
Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metricsLean Mission Statement describing the software’s purpose, Prioritized quality goals and evaluation criteria, Risks and estimated gaps against quality goals, More closely examined findings and open checksEffort Heatmap, Risk Signals, Discussion TargetsCurrent-state map, Future-state map, Bottleneck list
Tagsno overlap
FlowVisual managementDelivery
ArchitectureQualityRiskAssessmentLean
EstimationEffortRisk
LeanFlowWasteDelivery
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