Kanban Thought-to-Action Board
Move every idea left-to-right from 'get to do' all the way to measured, controlled results.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 82%
Jansen runs his life on an agile Kanban board extended with Six Sigma's DMAIC cycle. Columns start with a deliberately reframed 'Get to do' list, flow through Doing and Done, and then continue into Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Cards (post-it notes or Trello cards) always move left to right. Because everything lives in one shared system, both he and his team can see what he is doing and thinking, making his leadership transparent.
Origin
As a systems-minded coach and self-described geek, Jansen combined the agile Kanban pull system with Six Sigma's DMAIC improvement cycle to manage his own thoughts and campaigns, capturing ideas from his daily thought routine and pushing them through to measured, controlled outcomes in Trello.
Core principles
- 01Capture every idea the moment it arrives so it stops occupying your head.
- 02Cards only ever travel left to right, never backwards.
- 03Extend past 'done' into DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) so ideas become measured outcomes.
- 04One shared system makes your thinking transparent to your whole team.
How to run it
- 1
Build the columns
Create a board with Get-to-do, Doing, Done, then Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control/Update swim lanes.
Pro tip Rename 'to do' to 'get to do' to reframe tasks as privileges rather than burdens.
- 2
Capture ideas as cards
Every time an idea arrives, drop it as a post-it or card into Get-to-do so it leaves your head.
- 3
Pull, don't push
Move a card into Doing only when you actually have time; this is a pull system, not a to-do dump.
Watch out Overloading Doing defeats the pull principle and recreates the clogged-mind problem.
- 4
Run finished work through DMAIC
After Done, define what happened, measure the results, analyze and improve, then control and update the process.
Pro tip Treat each completed card as data, not just a checkmark.
In the wild
He keeps three campaign boards in Trello where every idea from his morning thinking routine becomes a card that travels left to right through Doing, Done, and the DMAIC lanes.
→ His team always knows what he is doing and thinking, giving him a transparent, agile leadership process.
Common mistakes
Stopping at 'Done'
Most boards end at Done, so results are never measured or improved. Extending into DMAIC turns completed tasks into learning.
Letting cards move backwards
Cards that slide left signal stalled or re-opened work. Keeping strict left-to-right flow forces progress and clarity.
Is it for you?
Best for
Solo operators and small teams who want a transparent, measurable pull-based workflow.
Not ideal for
People who find visual boards and Six Sigma vocabulary overkill for a short task list.
From the transcript
“I make sure that my post-it notes always traveled from left to right always.”
“All my campaign points are put into one system... so that I know and my team knows what I'm doing what I'm thinking and I'm…”
From the episode
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Peter Jansen