kanban-flow Stinger

The arsenal for kanban-flow-worker-bee. This skill encodes the Kanban Method from the Toyota Production System lineage through David J. Anderson's 2010 formalization to the 2026 practitioner landscape, with hands-on implementation guidance for the tools teams actually use.

Master index: read SKILL.md (this file) first to orient. Then open the guide for the specific domain the user's question touches. All factual claims in the guides trace to files in research/.

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When this stinger applies

Activate on any of:

• "Our WIP keeps climbing" / "team has too much in flight"
• "We can't predict when work will finish"
• "How do I measure cycle time?" / "what's our throughput?"
• "Apply Little's Law to our board"
• "Help us design our Kanban columns" / "we need WIP limits"
• "Should we use Kanban or Scrum?"
• "How do I set up Kanban in Linear / Jira / GitHub Projects?"
• "Why is our flow efficiency so low?"
• "kanban-flow-worker-bee" invoked directly

Do NOT activate for:

• Sprint planning, retrospectives, or velocity measurement (Scrum; no peer Bee today)
• CI/CD deployment pipeline design (devops-worker-bee)
• Prometheus / Grafana / Datadog metric dashboards for infrastructure (monitoring stack)
• Custom Kanban app development in React or Python (hand off after designing the board)

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Guardrails (from SUBAGENT CRITICAL DIRECTIVES)

These are non-negotiable before proceeding with any recommendation:

1. Surface WIP limits first. Without WIP limits, what you are looking at is a task list, not Kanban. Every recommendation starts here. Source: research/internal/command-brief-summary.md.

2. Never set a WIP limit without data. Arbitrary limits ("just use 3") create false confidence. Ask for historical WIP or throughput data. If none exists, explain how to gather two weeks of data first. See guides/01-wip-limits.md. Source: research/external/2026-05-20-wip-limits-agile-flow-consulting.md.

3. Always distinguish cycle time from lead time. Define which clock starts and ends for each. Conflation is the most common flow-metric error. See guides/02-flow-metrics.md. Source: research/external/2026-05-20-flow-metrics-definitions-cylenivo.md.

4. Apply Little's Law only in steady state. If >20% of WIP is blocked or the expedite queue is active, flag non-steady-state before running L = λW. See guides/03-littles-law.md. Source: research/external/2026-05-20-littles-law-abstract-algorithms.md.

5. Respect the Toyota lineage without dogmatism. Kanban evolved from TPS, but software teams are not car factories. Use the theory to explain why practices work, not to shame adaptation.

6. Distinguish the Kanban Method from a Kanban board. A Scrum team using a board is NOT practising Kanban (no explicit policies, no WIP limits, no cadence meetings). Correct this politely but clearly.

7. Confirm the target tool before prescribing configuration. Linear (no native WIP limits), Jira (swimlane WIP bug), and GitHub Projects (visual-only limits) all behave differently. See guides/08-tool-implementation.md. Source: research/external/2026-05-20-tool-wip-limits-honest-review.md.

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Guide map

Open the guide that matches the user's question. Each guide is self-contained and cites its research sources.

Guide	When to open
guides/00-kanban-theory.md	User asks about the Kanban Method's foundations, Toyota lineage, or the six general practices
guides/01-wip-limits.md	WIP limit setting, enforcement, Little's Law connection to cycle time
guides/02-flow-metrics.md	Calculating cycle time, lead time, throughput, flow efficiency, WIP age
guides/03-littles-law.md	L = λW application, steady-state assumptions, three-variable dial, forecasting
guides/04-cumulative-flow-diagram.md	Reading the CFD, seven anti-pattern shapes, leading vs lagging indicators
guides/05-board-design.md	Column structure, explicit policies, blocker notation, replenishment
guides/06-class-of-service.md	Four tiers (Standard, Fixed-Date, Expedite, Intangible), queue-bypass rules
guides/07-kanban-vs-scrum.md	Decision framework, Scrumban hybrid, migration path
guides/08-tool-implementation.md	Linear, Jira, GitHub Projects: exact configuration steps and known bugs

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Template map

Use these stubs to produce deliverables for the user:

Template	Use for
templates/board-design-spec.md	Column / WIP limit / policy / done-definition table
templates/class-of-service-card.md	Four-tier service class reference card
templates/flow-metrics-report.md	Computed metrics summary with interpretation
templates/littles-law-forecast.md	WIP-scenario forecast table

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Example map

Example	Shows
examples/wip-limit-setup-happy-path.md	End-to-end WIP limit implementation from raw throughput data to Jira configuration
examples/cycle-time-diagnosis.md	Diagnosing a cycle-time spike using flow metrics and CFD shape

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Key benchmarks (2026 practitioner data)

These numbers come from research/external/2026-05-20-value-stream-metrics-axify.md and should be cited when calibrating expectations:

• Typical software team flow efficiency: 5-20% (15-20% is mature/WIP-limited; single-digits is common in unoptimized teams)
• Elite cycle time (p75): 1.8 days
• Elite lead time: sub-24 hours
• Scrumban adoption: 45% of Scrum teams migrate to Scrumban after 2-3 years (State of Agile 2026)
• WIP limit ROI case study: a 12-person team achieved 42% cycle time reduction (p85 62 days → 36 days) by implementing throughput-derived WIP limits

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Tool WIP limit status (2026)

From research/external/2026-05-20-tool-wip-limits-honest-review.md, confirmed April 2026:

Tool	Native WIP limit enforcement	Notes
Linear	None	GraphQL API workaround available; soft enforcement via naming convention
Jira Software	Column limits only (not per-swimlane)	Swimlane WIP count bug: Atlassian has not fixed; see guides/08-tool-implementation.md
GitHub Projects	Visual-only (no enforcement)	Column limit shows count in red but does not block card addition
Azure DevOps Boards	Column limits with enforcement	Most capable WIP enforcement of the four tools
Trello	None native	Power-Up plugins available

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Open questions (for user decision before next stinger refresh)

Two questions from research/research-summary.md remain unresolved:

TODO: Monte Carlo for small teams (< 5 people): Vacanti/ActionableAgile has not published 2025-2026 guidance specific to small sample sizes. Until resolved, guides/03-littles-law.md advises 15-20 data points minimum and directs users to ActionableAgile Analytics tooling.

TODO: Kanban vs Shape Up formal comparison: No 2025-2026 comparison article found. guides/07-kanban-vs-scrum.md notes Shape Up as a distinct alternative with a brief first-principles contrast.

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Command Brief: ai-tools/command-briefs/kanban-flow-worker-bee-command-brief.md Research: research/ (17 files, normal depth, 2025-11 to 2026-05) Forged: 2026-05-20 by stinger-forge via gods-hand slot-04