The Girl With the Continuous Improvement Tattoo

Since we’re coming up to the holidays and we are all doing self-reflection here’s what tool I use for mine - my tattoo.

“The Girl With the Continuous Improvement Tattoo” - that’s what an Agile coach I’ve known for aeons called me yesterday. Only a handful of people had seen it before now, but I shouldn’t hold out on the team, so here you have it.

I heard it be called a “Kanban tattoo” before and I wasn’t quite agreeing with the term, over the years Kanban has been more consistently what I use with my teams away from the perceived rigidity of Scrum, but both have their place and they are both only powerful when tailored to serve constant betterment anyhow. So his label was more accurate but no matter what you call it, I have an Agile-type-board on my arm. Forever.

Is it crazy? Sure, but hey, some people have Tasmanian devils on their tushies out there, so there’s crazier.

It’s there first and foremost to keep my WIP low and focused. This was hilariously a point of contention with my tattoo artist who was insisting she draws a few more tickets because it wasn’t “balanced” so an hour was spent explaining elements of lean, the Agile manifesto and such until she eventually resigned to saying “Oh so “balanced” *would* be bad.”