Waste Identification (Waste Snake)

The Waste Snake is a practice for making invisible waste visible. It is not about solving problems — it is about noticing them. Small wastes compound: 15 min x 8 agents x 2x/week = 200 hours/year.

Source: Waste Snake by Tim Ottinger (Industrial Logic), crediting Martine Devos as inventor.

Core Principle

"The job of the waste snake is not to solve the problem but to make us aware of the wastes all around us." — Tim Ottinger

Report what frustrated, bored, or delayed you. Do not classify, analyze, or solve — just write it down. Classification happens during periodic reviews, not at observation time.

Observation Format

When you encounter waste, append an observation to the waste snake file at WASTE_SNAKE (per /docs/layout):

### YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM

[Free-text description of what frustrated, bored, or delayed you.
Include what you were doing and roughly how long was wasted.]

That's it. No category. No severity. No root cause. Just describe the moment.

Good observations include:

• What you were trying to do
• What got in the way
• Roughly how long was wasted (even a guess helps)

Examples:

• "Spent 15 min manually reformatting YAML frontmatter that a script could fix"
• "Waited 20 min for CI to finish on a docs-only PR — no path filtering"
• "Re-read the same 3 files trying to find the right skill path — no search command existed"
• "Wrote the same boilerplate agent frontmatter for the 4th time this week"

How to Report

Use /waste/add with a free-text description. The command handles formatting and appending.

Or append directly to the waste snake file at WASTE_SNAKE (per /docs/layout) using the format above.

Waste Snake Review

Periodically (monthly recommended), run /retro/waste-snake to:

1. Scan observations since the last review
2. Group similar observations and count occurrences
3. Classify clusters by Lean waste type (see references/waste-types.md)
4. Calculate compound cost where possible
5. Append a ledger entry with counts, trends, and top recommendations

The agile-coach agent facilitates this review (Workflow 5).

Who Reports

Anyone. Any agent, any human. The protocol is opt-in — the skill is available, not mandatory. The only requirement is honesty about what frustrated, bored, or delayed you.

Who Reviews

The agile-coach agent aggregates and classifies during Waste Snake Reviews. The learner agent watches for waste moments proactively and offers to capture them.

Reference

• references/waste-types.md — Lean waste type taxonomy for classification during reviews