Futurespective: “To-do & Not to do” these are the action items to get things done.

Futurespective is an incredibly positive perspective approach to get things done!

Not a lot of people are familiar with this method, although I personally find it to be one of my favorites.

I was introduced to this method a few years ago when I was wondering if I should take on a project or not, and I had to weigh the pros and cons, trying to figure out what I should do.

Usually when I start a personal coach or a team coach, I try to give the team/person a sense of control over the expected process and progress during the first few sessions, and to detect the gains and pains that the team or the person can use or over come in order to reach the project goals. It is also in my interest to set the team/person scoped into things he needs to attend that are directly related to the goal a head.

Futurespective can be a fantastic tool to serve this purpose (although we can use it for a lot more than that). It gives a good sense of control over the issues ahead and leads to practical action to enable better goals achievement.

Before we start

Some assumptions:

·         We assume that we have a team (or a person) with common interests and goals that they all want to achieve.

·         We assume that we are aware what project goals we need to achieve.

**Prepare sticky notes and a white board. After all, getting things done has a lot to do with visualization.

Let’s get practical:

 

1.       Ask the team to imagine a journey into the future where they are at the point of reaching their goals. Ask them to describe how this future looks like. What were the success factors that lead them to the point of success?  

**Tell them to ignore the execution phase for now. Give positive feedback and encourage the group to continue – don’t judge the ideas or the people!

 

a.       Write each success factor on a sticky note, and stick it on the board.

 

b.      Summary this session by understanding the factors that helped us get to this stage.

 

2.       Second phase: Ask the team to imagine they are at the point where they didn’t reach the goals.

The second phase may be the most important one in terms of making a point.

Why? What happened?

**Don’t get into solutions now.

a.       Write each unsuccess factor on a sticky note, and stick it to the board.

**Now you have a list of issues to do and not to do.

3.        Ask the team to look at the board.

 

 

a.       The ‘Goal Reached’ side of the board contains those issues we wish to keep.

These aren’t just issues; they can be policies, behaviors and rules. Following these may lead us to a better end. Keep this list visible. 

b.      The ‘Goal NOT Reached’ side of the board are those issues we wish to avoid, overcome, or deal with, a long time before they come happen.

 

4.       Draw action items: Ask the team/person to draw action items to keep/ avoid/deal. We can translate main pains and gains to action items as our backlog.

a.       Draw 1-3 actions items that need to be handled immediately, or assign team members to take those action items.

** Action items can be, for instance, create a list of policies, to avoid x and Y , to deal with issues and whatever.

5.       Now, all you have to do is just place your action items on your backlog and To-do list.

The techniques can be used for a lot of personal and professional issues. It can be used for example just before we initiate a new project, or just before we begin a personal journey; new work ; changes in life ; with our kids; just before a major turn over (new class, new year) and whatever we wish to tackle a head.

And as always, don’t forget to have fun while doing it.

 

Want to read more about Futurespective?

 

Self made Kanban board by a 10 years old boy.

This 10 year old boy has been an agile@home practitioner for quite some time, and after a while, his family no longer needed the Kanban board. The communication flows and things are getting done around the house, and the boy is now used to thinking Agile.

So if he feels it's necessary to create his own Kanban task board to control his tasks better, HE decides to do it, and HE creates it.

One, day, he decided he needed that in order to manage his tasks better, he needs to create a board again. It was getting close to the start of a new school year, and the sheer amount of school-related tasks, in addition to his daily chores, made him realize he needs to manage them better, at least for a short period of time.

So he created a board. But the sticky notes kept falling off. And this 10 year old boy went off to look for a solution, all by himself. When he finished, he called me over, to show off his new creation.

Instead of sticky notes, he wrote down a list of chores.

The numbers on the list represented the tasks number which is written in the appropriate column of performance.

Task number 8 was defined as a permanent task. The task was 'Have fun!'. He even added incentives(!)

All I have to say, is 'Well done!'

Well done for coming up with an innovative solution. Well done for solving your own difficulties and thinking how to get things done in the best way for your needs.

Well done for building your own unique creative board. It's YOUR board. As long as you understand it, that's all that matters.

And having 'Fun' as a task is a really healthy approach to life.

I am so proud!

Using An Action Map To Make Sense Of The To Do List

What do we do when we have a lot of tasks we need to complete?

We write them down.

So we start writing down the tasks and prioritizing them. But it doesn’t always work. We don’t always get to start really working on those tasks, getting things done.

You know why?

Because you’re not using a few simple tricks which make it so much easier to manage a large number of tasks.

For example, just look at the drawing, and how it became simple.

Visibility is a powerful tool to get things done.

An action map provides both visibility and the simple tool to follow the progress of our tasks easily from a need to do task to a completed one. Especially when we have a lot of them.

An action map is something very common used in agile software development teams to acquire visualization a bit ahead to way things needs to look like. You see , in software development , there is always tons to do, plan, change, test, and so on. When we want to get some high level sense of what comes first and what after (without getting into budget , resources and other nosing details) .. we create an action map (using sticky notes) and  sort them out into phases.

We can use this simple visibility technique for personal objectives too.

With our kids, it’s easier to use the action map to create order out of the tasks they need to deal with. We help them visualize the flow things can go. Visualizing “Now, next, later” is an easy way to think of a flow especially when dealing with kids.

 Visibility works for kids and a basic sense of order and roadmap makes the simplest order we need.

So how do we do it?

Simple.

Use a white board, wall, or window. Create three columns - Now, next and later.

●      Set the  goal

●      Break it to smaller tasks

●      Visualize your goal and tasks on a white task board

For example : Let’s say we have so many things to do in the summer….we want to take a trip to Sea World , re-organize the room , tidy up our wardrobe,  take the dog for his yearly vaccine, clear the shed…

●      Place them on a large action map and order them according to your needs.

●      When we want to get into getting things done Start doing one thing at a time, and visualize your progress of doing.

It can look like this :

●      Every day , consider moving tasks from the bottom to the “now/today” space.

As you can tell we can also set scope on one day only, and pick up tasks for the next day without confusing ourselves with more tasks that are not relevant for that day.

And … don’t forget to have fun ☺

Going back to school schedule

Remember when your kids spent the last month following a daily schedule, going to bed early, getting up early, and setting aside time for their homework?

You don’t?

The holidays might have had something to do with that :) Kids tend to sleep late, lose track of time, have no schedule whatsoever - but they’re kids. They are allowed to.

But school is just around the corner, and you need to start getting back on track.Going to bed at normal hours, setting a daily schedule, and so on.

 

How do we do that?

1.      First, we’ll refresh the basic rules.

a.      Bed time.

b.      TV schedule.

c.       Homework place and schedule.

d.      And of course, any other rules that matter.

2.      Gradually get back to track :

a.      Pick a few issues to start changing, and practice them.

b.      Retrospect each day over the results and select the next issues.

c.       Insist on getting tasks done.

I’ll finish this post with some practical tips of getting kids ready to go back to school - Enjoy!

http://www.slideshare.net/shirlyronen/going-back-to-school-with-agile-kids

The Feeling of ownership and quality time with our kids .

Agile@Home :

How many times have you told your kids to stop strewing stuff all over the living room? And how many times have you wondered, when would you be able to stop repeating yourself?

As you can imagine, it happened to me too.

Now, for a pop quiz. How many of you have taken over these tasks for your kids? You might get angry with them from time to time, but YOU are the one tidying the room, getting their bags ready for the next day - you are the task owners.

All of you? Yeah, I know the feeling.

But how did it happen?

First, lets all agree that we want our kids to own their tasks. Second, lets agree that we want to stop nagging them. Third, lets agree that the kids want to stop being nagged too. Now that we’ve agreed on all that, lets continue.

After all, i believe, we all want quality time with our kids, meaning we all need to free our valuable time with our kids to more important stuff than the same old nagging over and over again.

So how do we do this with Agile? It’s simple, really. By the way, some teachers have already used this method in their classroom to get the kids to perform better and own their tasks.

We take Kanban as a tool and Agile as a mindset and we manage to reduce the nagging and increase ownership. Doing that, we free up valuable time for a healthy family dialog.

I believe that Feeling of ownership means that you are the one that care about this task. You do it because YOU think it is important and not because someone commanded you to do it.

So how do we empower our kids, how do we help them become owners of the task?

What benefits are we looking for?

1.       How to get to the stage where the child does his task on his own (answers our needs as parents).

2.       How to make sure it's not a one time thing.

3.       How to make the child feel in control.

4.       What values should we pass on, and what does the child gain by completing his tasks (involvement, parental communication, attention).

We’ve written about real life examples before, but here’s a short list to achieve our goals:

A : Visualize the family chores.

1. Introduce Scrum to your kids the fun way. Use colors, sticky notes and a board, and show them its fun. Fun helps us connect better to a concept. Once we are emotionally connected we will be more cooperative.
   
   
2. Build the task board together: Sit down with your kids to build a task board as a family. Let them be part of it. Don’t build it for them. When we do something ourselves, we relate to it better and we start to develop that sense of ownership toward it. Having the children build the board is also easier for us as parents. I mean, what can they possibly get wrong? And don’t forget, this way they have our undivided attention.  So, just Draw the three columns, and let them do the rest.
   
   
3. Everybody puts a task on the board - even Mummy and Daddy. Not too many, one or two each.  Let them pick their tasks by themselves. ‘Helping’ them pick tasks just makes those tasks yours again.

B : Initiate the first step of a healthy family dialog

4. Suggested that it would be really fun to meet every evening and talk about the tasks, and move them on the board according to their progress.
5. Meet every evening and talk about the tasks. Let the kids move the tasks around the board themselves.
6. From time to time , suggest adding more tasks.

Over time, your kids will take ownership over their tasks. They get to the board from time to time, and especially on times agreed they need to do their chores and move the tasks from one column on the board to another.

It works in so many families these days, and its so simple.

Want to learn more?

And … don’t forget to have fun.

The fun of agile, it's the "getting things done game"

I have recently read this presentation, i know, it's from the industry but it really has a lot to do with agile, especially at home. (you can skip some of the technical stuff).

I love the  idea it presents :  fun helps to get things done. Games are the ultimate fun tool (if designed to fit the customer needs).

Agile at home for kids and families is similar to a fun family game. It happens every evening. We have sticky notes, colors, moving stuff around the Taks board, discussing openly the rules and doing it as a family.

When thinking of it , when we apply the agile into the organization development teams , if its not fun , it will not work (at least not to optimum).

So , as I say most of the times… don’t forget to have fun while you are doing it.

what-ux-can-and-cannot-learn-from-games