Work in Progress, or WIP, refers to the number of all items that have been started but not yet completed. WIP is one of the three central variables in Little’s Law and therefore directly linked to Lead Time and Throughput. The higher the WIP, the longer it takes on average for any single item to be finished.
In practice, WIP can be read from the Kanban board by counting all cards between the first active column and Done. If a five-person team has 20 items simultaneously in progress, statistically each team member is working on four things in parallel. That means context switching, higher error rates, and longer cycle times. The deliberate reduction of WIP, typically through WIP Limits per column, is the most effective lever for improving workflow because it forces the team to finish what has been started rather than beginning something new.
The term originates from manufacturing and is the central control variable in Kanban systems. Making WIP visible is often the first step when introducing Kanban and regularly leads to the surprising realization of just how much work is in flight at the same time.
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