WIP Limits

The acronym WIP stands for Work In Progress. WIP is the number of task items that a team is currently working on.

It frames the capacity of your team’s workflow at any moment. Work in progress (WIP) limits restrict the most significant number of work items in the workflow’s different stages.

They can be defined per person, work stage/type, or the entire work system.

Having too high WIP limits means your team is working on many tasks, switching contexts all the time, and not meeting deadlines.

Low limits, on the other side, meaning that when a given item is pending on a 3rd party, your members have to wait, i.e., they are idle.

WIP limits are essential for delivering customer value as fast as possible. By applying WIP limits, your team has the opportunity of locating bottlenecks in their working processes before they become blockers.