Before you start anything new, it’s worth asking a simpler question:

How much work do we already have in play?

I often see teams come back in January with good intent and clear priorities, but far too much already happening. The problem isn’t effort. It’s overload.

As a rough sense-check, I use something deliberately imperfect.

If you’ve got a team of around five to nine people, and more than a dozen pieces of work actively in play, it’s usually worth pausing.

Not because it’s “wrong”.
Not because there’s a magic number.
But because it’s unlikely everything is genuinely moving.

I sometimes joke that there’s no mathematical way to calculate the right amount of work in progress, but the answer is 1.8 items per person.

More than one.
Less than two.

Most people miss the joke and argue the number. That’s fine. If you’re debating precision, you’ve already missed the point.

What matters is accuracy, not perfection.

Work in progress doesn’t just live in one place. It spans design, build, testing, fixes, reviews, and release. Even when release is held up for good reasons, it’s still a signal. Work carries cost and cognitive load until it’s finished and in the hands of customers.

Teams that flow well don’t obsess over exact limits.
They notice when things stop moving.
They finish before they start.
They reduce load before adding more.

If January is about starting differently, this is a good place to begin.

And if you want a quiet way to sense-check where work might be piling up across your team, I’ve built a simple flow check that helps leaders spot those signals without turning it into a debate. No obligation – just another lens you can use.

Start finishing.
Stop starting.
Everything else flows from that.