Work / Side project
Too Much on My Plate
A card game I designed and ran for the KanbanSG community, so people could feel what unlimited work-in-progress does to a team instead of just hearing about it.
- My role
- Game designer and facilitator
- For
- A KanbanSG community session
- Format
- A 65-minute evening session with two rounds of play
- Topic
- Work-in-progress (WIP) limits
The problem
WIP limits are one of those ideas everyone nods along to and few people actually apply. Saying "start less, finish more" rarely changes behaviour. Feeling a pile-up yourself usually does. I wanted a session where people would learn by playing first and discussing after.
The name borrows from cai png, the mixed-rice stall where it's very easy to pile too much onto your plate. It's a familiar Singapore moment that maps neatly onto a team saying yes to everything.
How I ran the session
I planned the hour as tightly as a sprint, leaving a buffer for the part most likely to overrun:
Introductions
5 minutes.
Objective briefing and groupings
10 minutes to set the goal and split people into teams.
Game instructions
10 minutes, so everyone starts with the same rules.
Two rounds of play
40 minutes, including a 10-minute buffer.
What this shows about how I work
I make abstract ideas concrete. My background in cognitive science taught me that people learn faster from experience than from explanation, so I design for the experience first.
I plan for things running late. The buffer went where the session was most likely to overrun, the same way I'd protect a release date.