Ananya Rao

Scrum Master · An online retailer · February 2026

From firefighting to flow with Kanban

A support-heavy team was drowning in interruptions. Visualising the work and capping WIP turned chaos into predictable flow.

−45%
Lead time
+30%
Throughput
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The situation

The team handled both new features and a constant stream of urgent support, and everything felt equally on fire. Nothing was visible, so nothing was predictable.

What we changed

We put every item on a shared board, set explicit work-in-progress limits, and agreed a simple policy for how urgent work entered the flow.

The result

Interruptions stopped derailing planned work, and lead time dropped sharply within six weeks.

KanbanFlowCoaching