This is my short story how Scrum@Home made my family a better place.
Forming. I have a family with three adult daughters. The oldest one left home a few years ago and the two younger ones where just starting to leave the nest. One was actively looking for a small apartment and the other was making plans for studying in a different city.
Storming. March 2020 brought Coronavirus which cut all plans and pushed my girls back into the nest. Our spacious house got too small within days. Not meeting anybody and not eating outside made the kitchen and the living room a crowded place. We had to buy more groceries while we wanted to reduce purchases to one or two per week. Needless to say, that more cleaning and washing was required while everybody was stressed with the new situation. Our last Sunday dinner in March had some tension and my kids were still very angry with me two days later.
Norming. Knowing Tuckman’s stages of group development, it was clear to me that we had to refine the terms and conditions how we run our family. A Like by my friend Eric on a LinkedIn post about Kanban for home schooling inspired me to try Scrum at home. I found some nice stories about Scrum@Home like this one which encouraged me to give it a try. To set the stage I approached everybody on Tuesday and reconfirmed that we are in difficult times. I mentioned that I know a technique from work that can help us and that I am happy to discuss after dinner.
So, after dinner I explained the basic concepts of Scrum such as Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective as wells as roles such as Team Member, Scrum Master and Product Owner. I acknowledged that some concepts are weird for running a family household, but we can master it together if we refine Scrum for our needs.
The discussion of Scrum concepts and roles helped to turn the atmosphere, but it got even better when we converted the first door to a Kanban board. I took care that everybody contributed to the creation of the empty Kanban board to make it our board and not just Ulf’s board. When the planning was completed, we had two boards: a Kanban board for the weekly household duties and a schedule for cooking dinner and cleaning the kitchen after dinner. We also added some big-ticket items to the Kanban board like buying new laptops and improving internet connectivity to enable home office for four persons.
One moment that I especially enjoyed was when we worked the first time as a team on the Kanban board. We discussed needs, prioritized, thought about what support the grandparents need, etc. and agreed as a team what we can complete within the remaining week and what must be put in the Backlog. I got aware about some long-standing needs of my kids and my wife which I was not aware of and a few things that made me angry for years have been resolved within minutes by just talking to the Kanban board increasing the mutual understanding.
Performing. The rest of the week flew by quickly. We got many things done and the house was and is much cleaner than ever before. The photo above shows the Kanban board after the first week. But much more important: We now have a much better atmosphere with more respect, personal responsibility and mutual care. Since then we do Spring Review, Sprint Retrospective and Sprint Planning after Sunday dinner to keep it going and to improve.
Adjourning. By chance my 21-year-old got an apartment offered at mid of April and she moved into the new home the first week of May. It touched me to let here go while we have just reached the next level of an outstanding family. One could wish that Coronavirus would have hit us a few years earlier, but I am thankful that our last four weeks together have been so wonderful. In German we have the saying: “Gehe, wenn es am Schönsten ist!“ which means something like if it can’t get any better, you should stop.
Reflection. My story above includes some personal insights. I wrote it on Friday evening. Today after Sunday lunch I asked my family – or more precise the respective four of us five – what they think about Scrum at home. The photo below illustrates our joint reflection. I am pleased that the points of family match my own observations and feelings. I recommend everybody to try Scrum at home and in any relationship that matters, and I am delighted that I learned today that somebody I know created his Kanban board at home recently.
Acknowledgements. Thanks to Erik Heinen-Konschak, Heike Roettgers and Martin Lapointe for nudging me to try Scrum@Home, thanks to David Lebutsch for encouraging me to write up this story, and thanks to my family for making my home such a wonderful place. You keep showing me what really matters in life.
