Flow games
Why does work wait? Sixteen short games about a factory floor. Each teaches one thing. Two buttons, three minutes, no timer.
Start from what is going wrong
“We push harder and nothing comes out any faster.” The Release Game →Four a Day Is Not Four Days →The Dice Relay →The Busy Trap →Your Area Over Time →
“We are always waiting on one station.” Balance the Line →The Hidden Machine →The Pit Stop →The Job Shop →
“We make plenty and still cannot ship.” The Batch Splitter →Push vs Pull →The Beer Game →Network Priority →
All sixteen
The Release GameLetting in more work than the slowest machine can handle finishes nothing faster. It only makes every job wait longer. 3 min Four a Day Is Not Four Days
How fast the shop works is not how long one order takes. Promise from the wrong number and you will be late. 3 min The Dice Relay
When each station waits on the one before, bad hours pile up and good hours are wasted. The line runs below its average. 3 min The Busy Trap
The fuller you keep a machine, the longer everything behind it waits. Past about 85% busy, it gets bad fast. 3 min The Batch Splitter
You do not have to finish the whole pile before moving some of it on. Smaller batches finish the job sooner. 3 min Your Area Over Time
Knowing the pile is the problem does not fix it. Digging out means starting less than you finish for a while. 3 min Balance the Line
A line goes at the speed of its slowest person, not its average one. Help only the slowest step. 3 min The Hidden Machine
A machine loses time three ways at once — stopping, running slow, and making bad ones. Together they hide most of its day. 3 min The Pit Stop
Get ready while the machine is still running and it stands still less. But one crew can only be in one place. 3 min The Job Shop
The busiest machine is whichever one today’s jobs pile onto, and every job waits behind it — even jobs that never touch it. 3 min Push vs Pull
Making to a guess gets it wrong twice: too much of one thing, none of another. Make only what was taken. 3 min The Beer Game
Before you order more, count what is already on its way. Forget the boxes on the road and you order twice. 3 min Network Priority
If a finished thing needs a part from every cell, only complete kits count. Parts made ahead are just piles. 3 min The Quality Cascade
Stop a fault where it starts. Look at the machine’s last five, not the heap of returns. 3 min The Red Bead Experiment
Most bad days belong to the process, not the person running it. Telling off the unlucky changes nothing. 3 min The 5S Hunt
The more there is on the bench, the longer everything takes to find. Take away what has no job. 3 min