Taking a break from the AngularJS series this time. I decided to write about an experience of using Agile in the home. I had listened to a podcast from Scott Hanselman interviewing David Starr, Scrum.org and then read his paper on Agile Practices for Families. I watched a TED talk by Bruce Feiler where he talked about the same ideas as David Starr. I thought this would be really good idea in our house where 99% of the arguments between my wife and I are about who is doing household tasks (and admittedly Mrs I.D. doing most of the them).
So, one bright sunny Saturday morning, I embarked on a journey of discovery and purchased a new cork board for the kitchen. The reason I bought the board is that Mrs I.D. likes the old fashioned methods instead of something like trello.com. After the purchase, I sat the family down including my two year old daughter and told them that I was going to try this “work thing” and could we have a family meeting the next day at 11am? When the laughter had stopped, Mrs I.D reluctantly agreed to this request.
At 10am the next day, I started to put my fledging plan into action. Armed with post notes, a calender (for all our commitments), and breakfast. I gathered the family around our dinning room table. I started off by trying to explain what was going to happen and what I would like the outcome to be. At this point, Mrs I.D. made a very interesting statement, something along the lines of “Well, I already do this in my head every day, what do I need an enormous cork board in the kitchen for?” I tried to explain that if it is in her head then no one else knows about it, she gets frustrated because I don’t do the tasks that she expects me to do and I get frustrated because she always shouting and asking me to do things when I haven’t the time. I tried to add a competitive edge to it by giving each task one point and setting a threshold of 30 points for a reward. This was mainly set for my two year old (who maybe is a bit too young, but likes a reward) but it would motivate Mrs I.D. as well. I asked for a two week window to do this experiment, it was granted.
The board was broken into three swim lanes, ToDo, Doing, and Done. Each of us had an area on the board for our tasks and we would meet once a week to discuss the week and decide the next lot of tasks (with the repetitive ones like hoovering and dishes being swapped between us every cycle). We would also discuss our commitments during the week and make sure that our commitments did not delay/stop the tasks assigned. This allowed us to plan dinners, nights out and classes that we had, to make sure we were prepared. I also explained that we should have informal stand up every day to discuss the tasks (only involving Mrs I.D and I). This was sitting on the sofa after work.
After about an hour, we had enough tasks to keep us going for the week on fancy post it notes that I thought would keep everyone interested. My daughter’s task were kept to one or two light ones so that she would get used it.
The first few days and the rest of that week went okay. Everyone was getting into it and it generated a bit of discussion around the house, mainly laughing and joking about the lack of tasks I’d completed but there was no arguments. We just got on with it.
The second week however I found that the novelty had worn off. The tasks were practically the same but we stopped communicating about them. The arguments started again and in the end, no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to the tasks or the board. The final nail in the coffin came as the board was removed and we started to use trello.com. Mrs I.D. didn’t like the board in the kitchen so we moved to the electronic world. It became chaos, we were added our own tasks (that hadn’t been discussed) and doing tasks that weren’t on the board. Eventually it just fizzled out with our family going back to what we normally do. Just doing the tasks when they bother us enough to do them.
In conclusion, I believe this could still work in our house but a few things need to happen:
- The rules need to be bit clearer. (i.e. we can’t add tasks that haven’t been discussed)
- Some tasks need to given time limits, especially for me
- We need to communicate a bit better when doing this sort of thing.
- Everyone needs to buy into it and understand the reasons for doing it.
If there is any further update, then I’ll post about it. Hopefully it won’t be the last time I write about this subject.
The Inner Donkey Sanctuary 