Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See?

Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See? This is always an interesting debate. The lists are much longer but for simplicity I’ve surfaced a few salient points. So which is best? Physical or virtual? For me physical boards win hands down, but there are occasionally good reasons for a careful blend.
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How to Distinguish Between Activity and Queues on a Kanban Board

My Kanban boards follow a certain pattern, what I call the “Step In Progress then Done” pattern. By default each step in my process has an “In Progress” column and a “Done” column. Some people don’t like that. You wouldn’t believe the number of conversations I’ve had about it. These conversations more or less boil down to me explaining that “Done” is a queue, not an activity. And I want my Kanban board to make it clear that each activity has an associated queue.
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Purpose Finding: Only solve problems you need to

Brian Williamson has commented that although “problem-solving is important and good when you are stuck. I’m convinced we are in need of some more purpose finding.” I agree and finding purpose manifests in several places in my approach.
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Example of Day to Day Governance on an Agile Programme

You’d think I couldn’t win. Senior corporate managers are nervous that I am doing unconventional agile stuff, without those reassuring Gantt charts or status reports and hardly any formal minutes. Agilists are horrified that I advocate Agile Governance.

This conflict isn’t impossible it is just one of many places where I can demonstrate that Agile practices aid traditional processes/goals. In this case programme/project governance. I start from the position that governance is not contrary to Agile, it is built in. Rather than less governance my Agile programme actually has more governance than is the norm and is is safer as a consequence. Given this position is fairly controversial I thought I’d explain how I go about governance at the moment. I’ll give you a clue – there is a lot of talking.
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