If team members or work items often seem to be blocked, your team may need to adjust the Specify step, WIP limits, staff assignments, or other variables. The proper action to take depends on the symptoms. If the flow through your steps is uneven because items vary substantially in size, be sure that your first step (typically Specify or Breakdown) breaks down items into similarly sized tasks. Team members can review the item breakdown to ensure a reasonably consistent result. If a step still sways from having plenty of work to no work and back again, increase the step’s WIP limit by one (extra buffer to handle the variation). If a step is slow, and the steps before and after are constantly blocked, you’ve got a few choices: Do a root-cause analysis of why the step is so slow, and then speed it up. That could mean assigning more people to the slow step, improving the tools or specs, giving folks faster computers, or whatever helps fix the problem. (See Chapter 9 for more details.) Reduce the WIP limits by one for the steps before and after the slow step. Doing this also frees up time for some team members, who should be assigned to the slow step or to other projects. (The minimum WIP limit is one.) If team members assigned to the slow step are idle much of the time, increase the WIP limit of the slow step by one. However, be certain that’s the real problem— increasing WIP limits should be a last resort. If a step is fast and always seems to have a full Done column, reduce the step’s WIP limit by one. (The minimum WIP limit is one.) The team members assigned to the fast step should then have additional time to do productive work on other projects.