A friend of mine was looking for a Scrum Master gig, got his certification, and I passed along his resume. I knew him well, and he had the skills, dedication, and personality to rock the position. I knew having no current experience might be a hard sell, but I did not expect how hard a sell it would be. They didn’t look at my friend’s resume, see his impressive background, and bring him in to interview. They said to pass along weird suggestions of how to “prove” he could do agile. They would say things like “does your friend have a kanban chore board” or “can your friend manage their finances in an agile way.”
These were real suggestions from real people. They wanted to see candidates doing Agile in their home lives. It was insulting, and I felt bad that I’d passed along my friend for this poor treatment. That position did not pan out; what a shock. A much better opportunity showed up for my friend. There was an interview, it went well, and now it’s working out great. No creepy, invasive suggestions required!
The idea that a hiring manager would try to insist that people do Agile in their home lives is insulting. You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own home. I can’t have a job because I don’t do agile enough chores? It’s condescending. It’s demeaning. It’s arrogant, intrusive, and idiotic. It irked me. It still does. (Can you tell? lol)
But if you ignore terrible hiring practices, using Agile in your home can and does actually work. Prescribing that job candidates should do agile things if they want to impress is cringe-worthy. But using agile to help break down tasks into more manageable chunks can be very effective.
As one who suffers from depression, cleaning my bathroom often gets put off because it’s so much work. I hate cleaning my bathroom. It feels like it takes forever, and I dread it. Yet my bathroom is clean! I started thinking of “clean the bathroom” as a project. I set smaller goals of “clean the sink,” “scrub the tiles,” and “mop the floor.” I am doing the same work, but each little task is achievable. I often finish cleaning quickly. Each small task gets done faster than I expect, and I move on to the next.
Taking chores and breaking them down helps me do them, and it could help you too. How could you do this easily? If you like sticky notes then I can tell you that there is a deep and cathartic satisfaction in taking a sticky note with a task on it and throwing it in the trash. It seems silly, but getting to tear down that reminder and be done with it is a good feeling. So try old school: blue tape and sticky notes! I had a chore board like this on my fridge for a long time. You can also do this with a whiteboard and markers! I just like tape because it’s fun.
Kanban your Kids: Chore Charts that Work * Five Senses Literature Lessons
Last week, I decided, again, that I needed a new way to tell the kids to do their chores. My husband thought a kanban…
I grabbed that link because it had an image I liked, but it’s actually a pretty good article on how to get kids engaged in their chores. I don’t have kids, but if you do it might be worth checking out!
Dude, the novel?
Right, sorry, sidetracked. So what about doing this with a novel? Writing a novel is no easy task. Many who have tried and failed at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) can confirm it’s hard! I’ve never even attempted it. But I do have an idea for a new novel, and I’m taking to it in an Agile way.
I am a guy who likes to use technology over physical things. I could build a plain old stickies board, but I don’t wanna. That I am out of blue tape is neither here nor there. Instead, I am using my account over on Trello (#NotAnAd) for examples. This is where we start:
Not an ideal place to be, so we’ll build out the board a little. The flow of a board can be as simple as To-do -> Done, and it can get very complex. There are a lot of steps I want for this. We’re just getting started, so I want to have a backlog of stuff. Then I think the next step is to develop the ideas, so development. At some point writing will need to happen, so that’s next. Then editing, because I am (slowly) learning how different my writing and editing brains are. Next to last is proofreading. And then, finally, DONE.
I want to put some stuff in my backlog. Thinking too hard about details might slow me down. I’ll start with a world, some characters, and a plot.
Frankly, world-building alone is daunting. As you may know, J. R. R. Tolkien was a world-building monster. He wasn’t content to just have a dwarf character. He built lineages, histories, cities, mythology, songs, and so much more. I am not the world-builder he is, but I take some inspiration from him on how to make a world feel lived in.
I want to have a world in an uneasy state of light conflict. Empires are a favorite punching bag of the fantasy world, so that’s a place to start. Evil emperors are fun, so without going nuts on the character details, I can start there. If he’s evil, but the empire isn’t collapsing, then either he is competent or the government is functional without him. If people aren’t starving, then they have food. If they aren’t all dying, they have enough medical care. If it’s an empire, they have an army. I can take “world-building” and have smaller pieces to work on! I don’t want to get rid of the “world-building” epic yet. I’ll use the prefix “WB” to denote sub-tasks for world-building and add them in.
Writing a novel is not a thing I can just do. World-building the food production for this world is no easy feat, but it’s much more approachable. It gives me the idea that maybe a map would help with what food sources would be available, so that goes right into development.
Don’t take this as direction on how to write a novel. Some people sit down in front of some paper and get to work. Others build tacks and string conspiracy boards. Trello works for me, but the tool is less important than the breakdown. Agile is only effective if it works for you, and if the tool or the method isn’t perfect, change it. Scrum masters constantly refine the “how” of getting work done, and you should do the same. It’s not about the “right” way, it’s about doing what works. Effective trumps “right.” The underlying principle of “break big project into small chunks” is the crux. Everything else is negotiable.
Also, if you’re going to try this for NaNoWriMo, I have some suggestions. Firstly, good luck! Writing a novel is hard, so don’t be too hard on yourself. While I think working a task until it is done will help you focus, don’t be afraid to adjust your focus between tasks. Maybe after you figure out food production, that gives you an idea for a character. Instead of moving to the next world-building task, work on that character. Context switching is a time-eater, but so is burning out on what you are doing. And if any one thing is slowing you down, like your new character, break that task down into smaller chunks. Your new task could be “Character Personality” because that’s the only idea you have so far. Do that, celebrate that you did it, and keep the rest for later.
What big task have you been putting off?