Henrik Kniberg has long been one of my favorite coaches because he’s prolific and his teaching and content is relevant and spot on. This video is no exception. It is a great way for visual learners to understand what it means to optimize for resource utilization, or busy-ness, and what it means to optimizing for flow, or finishing work.
What’s great about this video is that he doesn’t present resource utilization and flow efficiency as binary options where you must choose one. Henrik presents both as relevant concerns but suggests how to blend the concern for both by establishing an order of importance. Essentially this is a lesson in what each are and how to care about them both responsibly. An added benefit is that you’ll walk away with an activity you can do with people at your office to help them understand and spread this concept. Planting seeds of knowledge is important.
My humble opinion is that this video is one of the best ways you can spend five-and-a-half minutes. Take the time to watch it and then comment on this post to let me know what you think!
Additional resources on this topic
Niklas Modig has written a great book on this topic: This is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox
Related blog posts on EverydayKanban: