Work In Progress
Two senses of one word: everything here is unfinished, and every started-but-undelivered piece of work is in flight.
The first sense is the posture of the whole body. We are discerning, designing and building at the same time. Expect changes, and big ones; expect unfinished links, loose ends, gaps in the plans, typos. The work to date carries lifetimes of effort from many people, and it almost certainly does not yet hold the piece you are carrying. The honest label on the door is not modesty; it is an invitation, and it is why nothing here is called final.
The second sense is exact, and it comes from the way work actually moves. Work in progress is every piece that has been started and not yet finished — the work standing between handoffs: taken up by someone, promised to someone, not yet delivered. On a site it is the wall waiting for its inspector; in a kitchen it is the dough that is rising; in a Circle it is every commitment made and not yet kept.
Two things are true of it in every field that has studied flow. With a fixed capacity, more work in progress does not mean more work done — each piece simply waits longer and the whole slows; and the thing to limit is the work in progress, not the work to be done. So a reliable body starts only what it can finish, keeps few pieces in flight, and finishes before taking more.
The senses are one condition at two scales. An unfinished world is carried the way an unfinished wall is carried: know what is in flight, keep it small enough to finish, hand it off well, and let the dross burn away in the finishing.
Also called: WIP Stands on: Everything Is Current Best Understanding · Networks of Commitments · Flow Opens onto: Progressive canonization · The look-ahead · Commitment · The Turn · The Board · Like Gold Refined Seven Times · Every Defect Is A Gift In play: table · beyond Sources: Work In Progress (draft; the page carries both senses) · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon header, which marks itself a work in progress (draft) · lionsberg.wiki: Work In Progress Open: none found.