barkingstars reviewed Personal Kanban by Tonianne DeMaria Barry
Review of 'Personal Kanban' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
This book did not work for me. I had recently become interested in Kanban and read this book along with a selection of others on the subject. I like to immerse myself in a subject and get a well rounded view. Also, as a GTD user of over 10 years I could see that Personal Kanban could plug a few holes in GTD. so far so good.
Unfortunately the execution of this book missed the mark for me.
Firstly it seems bizarre that a book that constantly pushes the benefits of visualisation does so little to show us what the technique looks like. Early on there is a lot of philosophising but very little to show you what Kanban can and might look like. Theres a lot of sell, sell, sell but very little tell, tell, tell. Examples are shoved to the appendix and the illustration of one in particular …
This book did not work for me. I had recently become interested in Kanban and read this book along with a selection of others on the subject. I like to immerse myself in a subject and get a well rounded view. Also, as a GTD user of over 10 years I could see that Personal Kanban could plug a few holes in GTD. so far so good.
Unfortunately the execution of this book missed the mark for me.
Firstly it seems bizarre that a book that constantly pushes the benefits of visualisation does so little to show us what the technique looks like. Early on there is a lot of philosophising but very little to show you what Kanban can and might look like. Theres a lot of sell, sell, sell but very little tell, tell, tell. Examples are shoved to the appendix and the illustration of one in particular is so small and useless (and badly explained) that I found it very frustrating.
Secondly there’s the rather irritating instances where ideas are introduced only to be shot down. If you don’t think Covey’s Urgent/Important quadrant is useful then why are you wasting my time with it? If you think a study on students deadlines is nonsense (without a similar study to refute it, by the way) why are you talking about it? There is a place for this kind of thing, but how about getting me on board with your argument before shooting down other people’s work?
All the way through this I just kept thinking - why won’t you get to the point?
I think the technique is interesting, and I intend to use it. But coming out with a book with large amounts of padding and little in the way of practical advice isn’t helping anyone.
