Your Kanban team is experiencing flow problems on a data migration project. The team's board shows 15 items in the 'In Progress' column, 8 items in 'Code Review', and only 3 items in 'Done' over the past two weeks. Team members report feeling overwhelmed and context-switching frequently between multiple work items. Lead time for items has increased from an average of 5 days to 12 days. The team lead suggests adding more people to help clear the backlog. What is the most appropriate action to improve flow?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is B. Implementing or reducing WIP limits forces the team to complete work before starting new items, reducing multitasking and improving flow efficiency. The symptoms described—high WIP, long lead times, and context switching—are classic indicators that work is being started faster than it's being finished, which WIP limits directly address. This follows the Kanban principle of limiting WIP to improve flow. Option A would likely worsen the problem by adding coordination overhead and potentially increasing WIP further. Option C creates handoff delays and removes team ownership of quality. Option D only addresses symptoms visually without changing the underlying behavior that causes flow problems.

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