The crazy agile project family

Two months back my husband and I wanted to fix some major issues in our everyday life, experiencing too much stress and even passing it on to our kids age 4 and 7. We did not find any solution, and discussed back and forth. Then suddenly, we had a breakthrough:

Me: What would you have done at work? If you joined a project as a leader of a team, with the same level of stress, what would you do?

Him: I would not take on as much in the sprint

Me: Ok, what else?

Him: I would reduce the product backlog

Me: Ok, great. How?                                          

Him: By visualizing the bare minimum on a board, and use that as a starting point

Me: Great idea! Let's do it: not take on as much each week, reduce the backlog and get a board

 

Then I thought: how can we hide that board from our friends and family visiting us??
My second thought: You are old enough to live the way you want, aren’t you?

 

This is our scrum board

At work one of my best capabilities is to focus on what is necessary, focus on the most important stuff. I usually find myself visualizing to others (stakeholders, team, product management) the consequences and opportunities that we have in the project, getting everyone on the same page: prioritization is key, and it is not in our interest to hide our head in the sand pretending we are able to do everything. 

At home, I found it much harder to leave out what I thought I needed! I just need to remember what I usually say (and do) at work: saying no to one thing is to say yes to something else! Lots of great stuff happens when we say no.

Now we are running Scrum for kids - agile family - lean living

True ownership (notice the drawings)

Short disclaimer: we are not running true Scrum, but the potential is there: weekly plannings, weekly retrospectives, I think we can get even more of this incorporated into our family life. (and become even more crazy!)

getting more lean!