Hi.

Keeping WIP small and priority changes that cause waste are independent things. Just because you shipped something, doesn’t mean that it will never be waste. i.e. a priority change (change of focus, direction, strategy etc.) can affect WIP as well as shipped code.

And with shipped code, you have the added cost of dealing with customers using those features that you may no longer be focused on supporting.

OR, because you’ve shipped it, you HAVE TO keep supporting it even if your priorities changed. i.e. it becomes an ongoing cost.

Conversely, just because something has NOT shipped, and you change priorities, it doesn’t make the WIP waste. Specific WIP can be paused and then restarted later and then shipped.

In short, priority changes are simply that and are not mitigated by shipping quickly.