When you limit work in progress to one item per team member, plus a 50 percent buffer, people are basically assigned only one work item at a time. Working on one item at a time avoids costly context switches and truly focuses your attention. There’s always email or other minor work to do if you’re ever stuck. However, some people work best with clumps of related work. It’s not ideal from the perspective of minimizing work in progress, but accommodating different work styles is important to a cohesive team. If your team has such a person, increase the WIP limit for this person’s step by one or two (giving him 2–3 items at once). It’s not ideal, and should be used only when the person’s productivity is clearly negatively impacted by the lower WIP limit.