# Busy But Not Moving Review (20 min) ## Summary Use this when the team feels active, overloaded, or constantly busy, but completed work is not emerging at the same rate. The aim is not to find who is slow. The aim is to see where the system makes finishing hard. ## When to use Use this when you hear signals like: - “Everything is in progress, but nothing finishes.” - “We are busy, but progress feels slow.” - “Work keeps waiting on decisions, dependencies, or specialists.” - “We only discover the real blockers after we have already committed.” ## Plain-language idea WIP means **Work in Progress**: work that has been started but not finished. Too much WIP often makes teams look busy while slowing actual completion. If everything is in progress, nothing gets full attention. ## Timebox 20 minutes. ## Steps 1. Pick five to seven active work items. 2. For each item, mark its current state: - actively being worked on - waiting on someone - blocked by a decision - waiting on another team - unclear or under-refined - paused because priorities changed 3. Ask: where is the elapsed time going? 4. Ask: what are we starting that we should stop, pause, or finish first? 5. Choose one safe-to-try improvement for the next week. ## Output - A visible list of current work states. - One suspected constraint. - One small next move. - One review question for next week. ## Watch-out Do not use this review to ask who is slow. Use it to ask where work is waiting, unclear, overloaded, or repeatedly re-opened. ## Review question What changed in the flow of work after one week? ## See also - [[Work Visibility Makes Friction Discussable]] - [[WIP Pressure Converts Capacity into Friction]] - [[Signal Log]] - [[WIP and Focus Check (10 min)]] <!-- owlery-external-loop --> ## Try this in Owlery GPT Use this prompt when you want to adapt the tool to a real situation. > I want to use or adapt this Owlery tool: Busy But Not Moving Review (20 min). Here is my context: [context]. How should I use it, what should I watch out for, and what would be a good review question? [Open Owlery GPT](https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6a0a198491d48191be9a00a665e43c9a-owlery-observe-frame-decide-learn) ## Feedback Did this page help, miss something, or use the wrong lens? [Share feedback on this page](https://tally.so/r/xXvP6J?source=obsidian-publish&page=busy-but-not-moving-review-%2820-min%29)