Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
Work In Pro... (WIP)
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

Work In Pro... (WIP)

Rafal Makara's avatar
Rafal Makara
May 08, 2023

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
Work In Pro... (WIP)
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
3
Share

Today, I read the legendary article Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, an excellent summary of knowledge from Henry Ford, Taiichi Ohno and Eliyahu Goldratt.

It relates to Kanban, Theory of Constrains, Toyota Production System, Lean Manufacturing, Drum Buffer Rope, Just-In-Time Production, Critical Chain. It is a stuff that I first heard of at my Polytechnic. Then I learned about it when working on Enterprise Resource Planning and Material Requirements Planning systems for the first 5 years of my commercial career as a software engineer.

These topics have been the origin of many things we do when building digital products.

But what got my attention is…

We all say Work In Progress.

This article says:

“[…] Work In Process […]”

- Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, Eliyahu M. Goldratt

And I think it’s beautiful.

My conclusion was - this is what they say in the Theory of Constraints community.

But then I opened Kanban, Wikipedia, which says “work in process (commonly referred as "WIP")”.

In Progress and In Process are probably being used interchangeably today.

I am wondering. Who made a fork of this branch?


This post is public so feel free to share it.

Share

Thanks for reading Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
Work In Pro... (WIP)
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
3
Share

Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Paulo André's avatar
Paulo André
May 12, 2023

Not sure what to take away from this post. Do you see an important semantic different between process and progress with regards to WIP?

Expand full comment
Like (1)
Reply
Share
2 replies by Rafal Makara and others
2 more comments...
I got fired once
I got fired from one of the companies in the past. That became a funny story to tell during job interviews and parties. I think... company owners who…
Nov 7, 2022 • 
Rafal Makara
5

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
I got fired once
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Journey to High-Performing Team
When referring to building teams, we often mention Tuckman's stages of group development: forming–storming–norming–performing. That helps understand the…
Nov 3, 2022 • 
Rafal Makara
2

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
Journey to High-Performing Team
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Agenda of "hello meetings" when joining a new company/team
When I join a new company or a team, I meet with everyone for a short 1:1 hello meeting. The agenda of each meeting is as follows: Story about Rafal…
Nov 16, 2022 • 
Rafal Makara
2

Share this post

User's avatar
Sorry Engineering by Rafal Makara
Agenda of "hello meetings" when joining a new company/team
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

Ready for more?

© 2025 Rafal Makara
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

Create your profile

User's avatar

Only paid subscribers can comment on this post

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in

Check your email

For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.

Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.