How to manage discovery and delivery work on a Kanban board?

On a Kanban board, you have

• a definition of workflow,
• a start point,
• a finish point,
• a cycle time (how long does the work take to get from the start point to the finish point),
• throughput (what is the rate of items being delivered across the finish point per time period, e.g. per day, per week, per sprint),
• work item age (what is the elapsed time from which a work item has started, but has still not yet finished),
• Work-In-Progress (WIP) (all the items that are within the starting point and the finish point).

Types of Work on a Kanban board

You could argue, on a Kanban board we have:

• discovery work;
• development work; and
• delivery work.

Discovery Work