The Definition of Done - How to use Agile to help our kids do their homework

I’ll start off this post with a revelation. Ready?

Children aren’t born knowing what we expect from them.

They aren’t telepathic. Just as we aren’t born knowing how to be parents, children don’t know what we want them to do. If we want our family tasks complete, we need to define the rules and boundaries.

Think about it for a second. How many times did you ask for someone to do something, and when they say they’ve done it, we find that what they did, and what we THOUGHT they should have done, are two different things?

I managed a team myself, and I know that sometimes I need to be specific, and make sure a task’s DOD (Definition Of Done) is clear. I find myself many times working with the team and with management to define the work procedures to follow in order to produce a quality product - procedures such as safety rules, delivery procedures and so on. One of my unwritten rules is that the riskier the task is, the clearer the definition of done needs to be.

The same thing goes for our homes. For example, when you take the car to the mechanic, you expect the car to meet safety standards. You pay your bills when specific DOD terms are met - the oil is checked, the car is made ready for the winter, etc. In this case, failing to meet those DOD terms can cost us our lives!

Of course, there are tasks that I personally categorize them as risky tasks, but of course, have nothing to do with safety. Tasks that can result in unnecessary arguments, for example, should also have clear definitions of done. For example, if you ask your kid to tidy his room, make sure you understand together what ‘tidy’ means. Otherwise your kid will tidy his room to his satisfaction - not to yours.

So, homework, for example…

How do we take everything we’ve just learned above, and apply it to helping our kids with their homework?

Homework can be the source of endless arguing around the house, so applying the Agile mindset to getting homework done, just aims to make things happen.

 Visibility:

See what you want to achieve by visualizing it. First of all, you know that it should be on the task board. Even if you don’t use Agile, the ‘homework’ task has to be out there. Don’t hide from the fact that your child needs to do his homework. When we see it, we relate to it, and we increase the probability of the task being completed.

 Take it seriously and be consistent:





If you don't, they won't. You are the parent and if you think it's important, then it is - and your kids will pick up on that. 

Be specific:

What does ‘Do your homework’ mean?
Does it mean sit in your room?
Does it mean write in your notebook, and not solve questions without writing?
Does it mean that your notebook has to be tidy?

Set the rules:





You are the parent. The Definition of Done isn’t just for our child, but for us as well. There are rules beyond the task that we as parents need to keep as well.

Take, for example, a factory that builds airplanes. Every day they need to construct 50 airplanes - but no one is in charge of making sure that broken tools are replaced. Do you really expect the factory’s workers to be able to churn out a consistent number of airplanes when their tools keep getting broken, but aren’t replaced? You don’t. The same goes for your children. Just as an example, expecting them to work four hours a day, doing their homework, is just unreasonable, and won’t do much for future motivation. Not having a suitable place to do their homework, will also affect their ability to complete the task.

Here are some examples of rules from my own personal experience that can help define the homework tasks and help our kids achieve them.

1.    Have them start doing their homework around the same time every day, and in the same place (that’s suitable for homework, of course).

2.    Be around if you are needed.

3.    Don’t make comparisons. Some kids have an aptitude for math, others flourish in History. Comparing the two is not just unfair; it also means that they will both under-perform. Just the same as when you interview new employees - they might have the same qualifications, but they are two different people with different personal advantages.

4.    keep a tidy notebook

5.    And more...

 Don’t forget the ‘continuous improvement’ maxim. 




Don’t just deal with the ‘here and now’ aspect, talk over the homework issue at your daily family gathering and weekly retrospective meetings. Talk about how your child plans on visualizing his homework in the future.

Talk it over. Agile is all about mindset, and Agile at home is all about dialog.



Understand the difficulties in doing the homework, and be there to help (when needed only). The daily meeting is the place to talk about the homework - just like any other task, and not as a focal point for the entire family, a problem with the ‘why don’t you ever do your homework!’ kid.

The bottom line is that a good Definition of Done is one that is specific enough to understand what results are expected, and has rules, boundaries and surroundings to make sure that things get done.

The fun way :)

KanPlan - A neat Homemade Kanban way to do your homework

Agile@Home :

Sometimes all I need to do is download a new app for my android tablets, and watch the kids use it. In this case - I got KanPlan, and in two minutes my children were all over the iPad, adding their homework tasks, and getting things done.

KanPlan was developed by Houda Hamdane as a solution for parents who want to organize homework time for their kids, while making it fun for everyone. KanPlan, as you probably understand from the name, uses Kanban to make this happen, and you know I believe Kanban to be one of the best tools in dealing with children and family tasks.

I first heard about KanPlan when commented on my LinkedIn post. Obviously, we both share the same interest in Kanban and believe in the home made /self made Kanban way to get things done.

Now, as you already know, I love simple. And KanPlan is simple.

You can add all sorts of tasks of course, not just homework. You can drag and drop your tasks according to their relevant status, and it is just full of colour.

They’ve even got a game - the KanQuiz - that you can solve to get points.

It just makes sense, when you think about it. Children today are naturally drawn to smart devices - smartphones, tablets, touch screens. Apps are their natural environment. So why not take advantage of that fact, and help them visualize their task with tools they are familiar with? Not only that, but pretty soon tablets will start replacing school books - so you are also preparing them for the not-too-distant future. The value of Kanban to the family and children go without saying (just take a look around the blog). KanPlan gives us a neat Kanban app for the kids, and has potential to be even bigger.

So go on - check it out. You’ll be amazed at how easy KanPlan is to pick up and use. 

http://www.screenr.com/Vkg8

Other than this video, there’s also a step by step tutorial of course.

You can get the KanPlan version for free from here: KanPlan has no ads in it (after all this is an application for kids)

http://www.kanplan.net/home.html

http://www.screenr.com/RVh8

What is a homemade Agile (Kanban&Scrum) system?

Agile@Home :

It’s probably time I gave a brief explanation about Kanban mainly, and how it  translates to an effective family communication system that helps us get things done .

I’ll keep it short, OK?

Kanban is a Lean manufacturing tool, aiming to lower costs in high production environments. "Kan-Ban" is Japanese for signal card, that had all the product information written on it, and what is needed to be done after production. A Kanban system contains a set of cards allocated to each station in the manufacturing line.

The Kanban System was developed few decades ago by Mr. Taiichi Ohno, a vice president in  Toyota, to achieve his goals of reducing costs, while retaining high quality in the manufacturing line. The system is still used today by industrial factories all over the world, and has been widely adopted by the software development industry. Today, more and more uses are being found for Kanban - self management , time management, and GTD (Getting Things Done).

See? I promised it would be short.

Kanban principles (And a bit of Scrum) and how they translate to the Agile Kids system:

 

Visualize your Needs.

Think about all the things you want to do, or things that you are trying to do, but just don’t get to them. For example: The morning routine with the kids is full of tasks. Are we doing it well? Are they getting to school on time?

What about my office, am I managing my tasks well?

Just write it down, preferably on sticky notes, so you can see them. Visualization is valuable, and it helps get things done.

Imagine you are a work manager of a chair factory. If you were making a chair, you would write down the materials and tasks you need - measure, saw, glue, and so on. You want chairs of different sizes, and different colors... These are all tasks.

Some tasks consist of smaller tasks, while other tasks depend on tasks that come before them. So you need to list them all. Of course, you can list down all the tasks you want to complete for your family or your office.

This is our wish list, or ‘backlog’.

Some of the tasks we list are urgent, some are wishful thinking, and others are tasks we’ve put off for a long time.

We can create wish list for our tasks in the office or for our home chores. Whatever.

Now all we need to do, is visualize. Your basic work flow has three simple steps. ‘To do’, In progress’ and ‘Done’.

As a work manager in our chair factory, If you were making a chair, then your workflow would look like this:

Measure → Saw → Assemble → Paint → Ship.

In your case, tasks look a little bit different, but you still have a workflow. Of course, you mustn’t forget to prioritize your tasks!

Visualizing our tasks this way helps us see what we need to do, and when to start working on the stuff we want to do.

 Limit your WIP (Work In Progress)

 

 Start working. But remember, trying to bite off more than you can chew is  the best way to fail.

Do one thing at a time. Pull one tasks , complete it , and then pull the next task in line.  In time, you’ll see how many tasks you can perform at the same time, but to start off with, it’s better to complete one task at a time, then start five, and not complete any of them.

Take the chairs factory for example. After you set up your tasks, you try to build 100 chairs at once. You need to assemble them, paint them and ship them. You might be able to assemble them all, but that’s about it. All those unpainted chairs will just sit there, a large bottleneck you’ll have to deal with later, and of course, not one is shipped out.

But what if you would have tried to build and ship FIVE chairs?

In the industry, when a factory starts a cycle of work but does not finish, it is called inventory. Factories can’t sell inventory, and it takes up room (which needs to be paid for) and kept at a specific temperature (which needs to be paid for). In our personal life, we pay for that wasted inventory with delays, stress and overtime, just because we try to keep up with too many tasks. Context switching (jumping from one task to another without completing either) is another way to get little or no value from our tasks.

Visualization helps you identify your limits and control your workload. 

Improve

Say you have a goal in mind, and a list of tasks. Just completing each task in turn and moving on to the next one won’t necessarily get you anywhere, and you won’t be able to improve on what you did. You need to review your performance and avoid making the same mistake over and over again.

Lets go back to our chair making. Remember that you need to measure the wood, then saw it? If your saw isn’t sharp enough, then you’ll be working twice as hard just to cut the pieces. Then you’ll work at sanding them down, joining them, and so on. You need to stop every so often, and sharpen your saw, before you get back to work. Or in other words, review your tasks. identify the areas of improvement and keep on the work. then stop again , review your performance , change , and continue with your changed flow.

It isn’t hard to find examples from our Family life, either. Every morning, the whole family waits by the door while my son hunts for his shoes. Isn’t it obvious that we need to put his shoes next to the door the night before? Of course it is. It can be about tasks as simple as putting on shoes in the morning, and as complicated as managing your meeting schedule in the office.

Stop, and think about your work flow. Otherwise you’ll find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again.

Kanban is not enough ,This is the point where scrum comes into the picture. when we use Kanban with our family , scrum and agile mindset are also part of our success. 

Run your tasks in small iterations of time (optional), it allows kids and us to scope better. Meet once a day ,as a family , review your progress and needs. Retrospect over what you did and plan the next step accordingly. Talk things over with your kids; get ideas about how to improve on your tasks. In the industry, this form of improvement may be ‘let’s meet once a day, review the project and learn how to do it better’ or identify the area of improvement, talk it over and perform the change. Then, try the news setup. This is exactly the same thing at home…meet , talk it over.  We then improve and free some valuable time to talk over the really important stuff.

Make Process Policies Explicit.

Policies are created based on experience to allow us fast and smooth flow performance. Meaning, getting things done.  One rule in our chair factory is ‘don’t paint the chair before the glue dries’. This rule, or policy, is simple of course, and we have lots of them. But even the simple (and obvious) ones must be stated, so that everyone knows them

The same goes for our house. Bedtime and meal times are known and understood by all. They are known policies. Of course, policies can change - for instance, our policy is to complete homework when the kids get back from school. But after a week, we find out that they do a much better job when they do their homework after supper. So the policy changes, and our kids can get their homework done faster and better - but the policy is still stated explicitly, so that everyone knows what it is.

You can apply the same system of policy rules to your office day - ‘leave 5 min at the end of every meeting’, ‘don’t have consecutive meetings as you won’t get there on time’ and so on.

Improving is also about being able to set new policies, follow them and see if they work for us better.

Measure And Manage Flow.

In our chair factory, we put a lot of effort into our task flow, as we care about the time it takes from when the customer’s order comes in to the point when they get their chair. We want to know exactly where the bottlenecks are, and make sure we are working as efficiently as possible.

Around the house we aren’t so ruthless in our pursuit of efficiency, but we do expect to know what we are doing, and see how we can improve, and free up quality time to be with our family. For example, once you learn to put the kids’ shoes by the door each night, you can actually relax with your kids a few more minutes at the breakfast table each morning. Isn’t that better than waiting for them by the door while they hunt for their shoes?

In the office I also want to be more efficient, so I can free up time to pay attention to my customers. Just as an example, say I use the printer a lot - but it is located two floors up. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to change the printer’s place, or buy a new one for me, instead of running up and down two flights of stairs each time I printed something out? Once you free up that valuable time, you can use it for more productive things. and at the same time speed up your flow of delivery to your customers. 

 

To Sum Up:

Just follow some simple rules:

1.    Visualize

a.    Your tasks: Know what you need to do and make a list

b.    Visualize your workflow: Place it on a board

2.    Do one thing at a time. Don’t take on more than you can handle.

3.    Follow and inspect your progress and outcome to improve. Talk it over, every day.

4.    Remember Scrum. Meet once a day for a family gathering, retrospect and plan your week.

5.    Understand your limits and set your relevant policies and rules.

6.    Measure and manage your flow

Resources:

Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-scale Production, Taiichi Ohno

Henrik Kniberg’s Scrum and XP From the Trenches

Henrik Kniberg’s Kanban and Scrum - a practical guide

Kanban for software engineering

Convert a Scrum team to Kanban

http://www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg/Kanban-vs-Scrum.pdf

Niños ágiles. ¿Quién es mi jefe?

Now, "Agile kids - Niños ágiles" can be bought in Bubok in electronic and paper format.  

http://www.bubok.es/libros/213212/Ninos-agiles-Quien-es-mi-jefe

Una forma práctica de conseguir que se realicen las tareas diarias y de fortalecer la comunicación familiar. Niños ágiles es el manual que toda familia moderna necesita, en la que los padres tienen trabajos a jornada completa y en la que los niños siguen necesitando su atención. Una parte esencial del desarrollo de vuestros hijos es su habilidad para elegir, ser independientes y controlar su vida. Y los padres tenemos que potenciar esa independencia. Niños ágiles os enseñará cómo capacitar a vuestros hijos sin perder vuestra autoridad parental, mediante una serie de acciones prácticas. Cada capítulo puede leerse de forma independiente y os ofrece consejos que podréis llevar a la práctica enseguida. Los métodos descritos en el libro son efectivos en la enseñanza de valores y de respeto a los otros y aplica tanto a niños que van al colegio como a los que se forman en casa. Así que ¡a disfrutar!

Mind mapping and your to-do list:

Here we are again, presenting another fun and creative way to arrange our tasks to help us get things done.

Today, I want to introduce to you - The Mind Map.

Googling 'mind map' shows you dozens of images and techniques of mind mapping.

I’ve even published an article about mind mapping the software testing exploratory technique myself.

Mind mapping is one of the most powerful visualization tools for ideas, flows, goals - whatever we want to achieve. It works wonders with kids, as they visualize their way through the things they want to do.

Why use it at home?

Because it is another way that helps us get things done. Because it works for so many people. Because It is so simple and effective, that I just had to talk about it.

As usual, I want to keep things simple. I prefer to use mind mapping as an initial tool to initiate our wish list, to get our to-do list in order.

But first, what exactly is mind mapping?

"A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea… Mind maps have many applications in personal, family, educational, and business situations, including notetaking, brainstorming (wherein ideas are inserted into the map radically around the center node, without the implicit prioritization that comes from hierarchy or sequential arrangements, and wherein grouping and organizing is reserved for later stages), summarizing, as a mnemonic technique, or to sort out a complicated idea. Mind maps are also promoted as a way to collaborate in color pen creativity sessions.

Mind maps can be used for:

●     problem solving

●     outline/framework design

●     structure/relationship representations

●     anonymous collaboration

●     marriage of words and visuals

●     individual expression of creativity

●     condensing material into a concise and memorable format

●     team building or synergy creating activity

●     enhancing work morale”

Wikipeida

Kids are doing it all over the world any way. So how do we do it?

Lets say we have this three week vacation coming up, and we want to plan what we want to do. As a regular reader of my blog you already know, that the best thing to do is build a mind map as a family, together. Visualize it, talk it over, and have fun with it!

1. So the first step of mind mapping will be to visualize a central word, topic, idea, subject, or concept.

Say - Holidays family activities.

2. Now, we add three or four ideas that are linked to the main idea.

Think , for example , what would we like to do in that period of time ?:

‘Have fun’

‘Do homework’

‘Paint the house’

Write those down on the board, or add sticky notes.

3. Now continue to add even more ideas under those ideas. Use bright colors! Arrows! Colored lines! Anything that makes the mind map easy and fun to follow.

4. Now, can we actually do everything we set down in the mind map? Well, luckily, you used sticky notes. Move them around, see what’s really important, and add them to a board. Call this your ‘To do’ column.

5. Now add two more columns - ‘In progress’ and ‘Done’.

See?

Mind maps are used all over, for all sorts of things. Education, life skills, chores, and so on. For us, it's just another fun way to help us get things done.

Citations:

●     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan

●     http://www.thinkbuzan.com/uk - official website of Tony Buzan

●     Mind map pattern from : Tony Buzan © 2004 "Mind Maps for Kids : Rev up for Revision"

Easily estimating our home made Kanban tasks

A lot has already been written about Agile project estimation, and people practice task size estimation to varying degrees, as knowing how long your tasks will take helps achieve a better control and understanding towards the project’s delivery. Kanban is a bit deferent in terms of estimation since the items suppose to be close to being in the same size. Estimation in this sense is having our items closer to the size we can achieve them.  There are many techniques that you can apply, and of course, arguments as to why each one is obviously the best.

I think that sometimes we can agree that we cannot avoid estimating/sizing  our features and our tasks for a software project that has a budget, time line and content. We all know that estimation is a complicated thing to do, and that we learn how to get better at it by making lots of mistakes along the way. We also know that our estimates are probably wrong most of the time (at least at the beginning) and the best way to deal with it is to develop a continues improvement thinking of how to improve our time estimations, and of course, how to manage the inevitable delays. but we do know that when working on a 'small' size tasks is a good start for achiving them and the entire project delivery.

So how, you ask, do you balance task estimation with the limitations when using Agile and Kanban for ourselves and inside our family?

The answer is, of course, “it depends”.
Using Agile and Kanban at home is a bit different when it comes to estimating tasks. After all, can we expect our kids to estimate the time it takes them to tidy their room or to have their homework done? And should we even ask them to? but we can work on an achivable size of tasks.

In cases when we have set budgets and time-lines, it’s probably best to try to estimate our tasks as best as possible. Grading exams, or working on a university seminar are good examples. I’d even toss in a burn-down chart, but that’s a different discussion. Appointments and meetings could also be a good project to estimate your tasks for - A meeting takes 45 minutes, and I make sure I have a 15 minute break between meetings. So I can have five or six meetings a day, and still make sure that I have a break.

But  do we need this level of estimation for kids and family chores?

No. You don’t. There are other ways to get things done and still be able to size them to fit our needs. In my opinion Estimation is not so needed in Kanban since the items suppose to be closed to being in the same size. Estimation in this sense is having our items closer to the size we can achieve them. Its all about identify this ‘size’.

Here is a nice technique, often used in verity of software projects,  that will help you size your tasks so that you’ll be able to achieve more.

1.       Create your backlog and visualize it.

Visualize whatever you need to do. Once all the tasks are on the board, tasks become easy to manage and size. It also becomes easier to understand the size of the tasks one against the other.

2.       Use three types for a rough estimation.
Small
Medium
Big

** Very big - optional

The ‘sizing estimation’ in this step acts as  a big container allowing us to identify and separate tasks into different chunks.

you can create a column for each size, or give each size a different-colored sticky.

Now, ask your child to size his tasks according to what he thinks and place the in the Right column on the board.

3.       Listen and learn.

Remember when you where a child, places look bigger to you then they look today? That’s how your kids see their tasks. A lot bigger than they do to us. So listen and ask questions to make sure you understand the size of the task as it appears to your children:

What is a small task?

What is a big task? What makes it big?

Compare tasks to understand how the child sees the terms of 'big' and 'small'.

4.       Once  you have all the important tasks, divide big tasks into smaller ones.

Following an example of a big task the better be split to smaller ones:

5.       Stick to the small-medium tasks and prioritize your tasks.

6.       Pick one or two tasks, and off we go.

7.       Not everything at home needs to be estimated. In fact almost everything does not.

For example: let's say we have 2 days to complete learning to a math exam. Then the estimation may be a rough one: what is supposed to be done in the first day and what is our child expected to finish in the second day. We can then discuss each task and try to understand if it's in the first or second day. We can then use rough estimations for tasks that we think will need it.

So try to keep things simple . 

Rough estimation may be "just enough" at home with our kids: whenever we have a big task to do , let's examine our needs, divide it to smaller tasks to the size of 'just enough'.

Remember, we are dealing with kids not hi-tech employees. Visualization works for them much more. The same goes for colors, and playing games, and the fact that we parents are involved makes it even better. They love being with us, and they love it when we listen to them.

So, while this simple technique will help them learn how to estimate task sizes, and stick to what is really important to do without the burden of time pressure.

And as always , keep it simple , and don't forget to have fun along the way.

South America here we come…

We have agile kids concept in Spanish now.  

http://www.slideshare.net/shirlyronen/agile-kids-12567730

Una forma práctica de conseguir que se realicen las tareas diarias y de fortalecer la comunicación familiar. Niños ágiles es el manual que toda familia moderna necesita, en la que los padres tienen trabajos a jornada completa y en la que los niños siguen necesitando su atención.

Una parte esencial del desarrollo de vuestros hijos es su habilidad para elegir, ser independientes y controlar su vida. Y los padres tenemos que potenciar esa independencia.

Niños ágiles os enseñará cómo capacitar a vuestros hijos sin perder vuestra autoridad parental, mediante una serie de acciones prácticas. Cada capítulo puede leerse de forma independiente y os ofrece consejos que podréis llevar a la práctica enseguida. Los métodos descritos en el libro son efectivos en la enseñanza de valores y de respeto a los otros y aplica tanto a niños que van al colegio como a los que se forman en casa.

Así que ¡a disfrutar!