KanbanKid

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress. -Philip Roth

[kanbankid]

kanban + workflowy = productivity nirvana?

I recently came across this clever application of the outlining app WorkFlowy to kanban. While the visual orientation is very different than a traditional board view, the combination makes sense. 

(A kanban board generally flows horizontally across lanes. WorkFlowy flows vertically.)

I’ve used WorkFlowy for a number of years as an outlining tool for writing and appreciate it for its lightweight-ness. A kanban application gives it a great deal of depth, I may add a card to my current board, to try it out. :)

More WorkFlowy + kanban resources (from the Workflowy blog):

WorkFlowy Webinar #2: Kanban 101

Get a Grip On Your Day with Kanban Scheduling in WorkFlowy

Using WorkFlowy as a Kanban Calendar

The Tooth Fairy Does Kanban in WorkFlowy

Give Me One Good Reason You’re Not Creating Lists WITH Your Kids (not exactly Kanban but a great post)

You can register now for the 3rd WorkFlowy webinar (February 16, 2017), for a demonstration of how to manage tasks in WorkFlowy using the “Kanban Calendar,” and how to automate creation of your calendar. 

[kanbankid]

from kanban to kaizen

When I first introduced kanban to my family, it was primarily an effort on my part to instill some order in the midst of chaos. And, for the  most part, it’s achieved the desired goal. 

It’s an ebb and flow — we go through periods of using the board a lot, to not so much. But I think that was the point, at least for us. We’ve tried managing various efforts via the board, and figured out what made sense (for us) and what didn’t. Managing one-off projects: make sense. Managing regular chores: not so much. 

(With that said, I know others who use kanban almost exclusively to manage regular tasks, so this appears to simply reveal the beauty of kanban’s fluidity based on the needs of the user.)

At this point, I can clearly identify the one thing kanban brought into focus for us: the concept of continuous improvement. From day one, we used the board to talk about the how and why of what we’re doing — what went well, what didn’t, and what we wanted to do better. Which opened the door for talking about how we all want to continue to grow and improve in life, no matter how much experience we have or schooling we have or wisdom we have. 

Which brings me around to the kaizen part of this post. The word essentially means “improvement” in Japanese. So I guess I could forgo referring to kaizen and just say improvement, but, truth be told, I think it’s a lovely word that for me conveys more than simply improvement. I’ve endowed it with a richer meaning: it signifies for me a commitment to life-long improvement, which can (and does and will) happen at varying paces. Some improvement is small and incremental. Other times, it is bigger and faster. I view all of it as part of kaizen.

So, in the natural progression, our family is using kanban as one of many tools for pursuing kaizen. I like to think that we’re all adopting and adapting both as a family and as individuals. I guess my hope is that it is sinking in as a mindset that we all use when approaching any task or challenge, whether at home, at school, at work. 

One more observation about kaizen: I think it also includes an element of both of humility and curiosity. Having a kaizen mindset gives us permission to admit we don’t know it all (and never will), and the drive to be curious about that which we don’t know. These are characteristics we as a family value highly. Kaizen gives us a way to talk about them, and hopefully live them.

Read more about (personal) kaizen:

Get 1% Better Every Day: The Kaizen Way to Self-Improvement | The Art of Manliness

Personal Kaizen: 15 Tips for your Continuous Improvement | Presentation Zen

Get Better and Getting Better: The Kaizen Productivity Philosophy | lifehacker

Kaizen: The Art of Continous Life Improvement

[kanbankid]

some kanban inspiration for the new year.

To kick off the new year in kanban style, I’m sharing some inspiring resources from my favorite go-to kanban resource: Personal Kanban. 

1. Projects around the house.

“Homes are especially plagued by little tasks that never seem to get done. They mount up and all seem to be equally important or equally unimportant. Prioritization is difficult, and procrastination ensues.”

This post offers a method of using kanban to manage household projects — by tackling one each month to avoid getting overwhelmed. I  love the emphasis on starting small and staying small. Projects approached in this way are much more likely to fit into the madness of a family routine. And actually get done.

2. The Kaizen Resolution

“What is Kaizen? Kaizen, in its essence, is continuous improvement. It is an internal drive to constantly be making things better. I want to do okay this week, a little better next week, a little better the week after that.”

Kaizen is about making change small, incremental, and meaningful. This post offers a method for using kanban to establish some kaizen habits for the new year.

3. Using kanban to build confidence.

“The board has caused her to realize that confidence isn’t only about achieving those goals, it’s about seeing her work in progress. Along the way her confidence will get stronger and stronger with each goal that is met.”

This post describes how using kanban to organize and track activities can boost kids’ confidence. Wouldn’t  that be a great way to kick off 2016?

The Personal Kanban site is the first place I send anyone interested in using kanban — it’s a treasure trove and a great place to go if you’re looking for kanban inspiration for the new year (and beyond). 

[kanbankid]

implementing the 5S process.

In a previous post, I shared the Rule of 5S, and have since been pondering its application to family life. 

Thanks to this post by Cameron Ford on the Lean Post (Lean Enterprise Institute’s blog), I’ve formed some more specific thoughts. So specific, in fact, that cards are going on the family kanban board. Today.

We’ve just kicked off the second quarter of this school year and while the wheels aren’t quite coming off the bus, things aren’t running as smoothly as they did a month ago when the year was still shiny and new. 

So all of us — kiddos and parents alike — are going to get our “work” spaces at home organized à la Mr. Ford’s 5S process for his personal workspace.

SORT. Make two piles: keep and discard. And then do just that. The discard part will be critical here. As the school year progresses, we start resembling pack rats. Not anymore. The goal: reduce to just the necessities.

SET IN ORDER. Organize — intentionally and purposefully — what we’re keeping. 

SHINE. Make the freshly-organized space neat and clean. With a 14 year old daughter and 11 year old son, this step will require more effort than it did for Mr. Ford. 

STANDARDIZE. Identify ways to keep the clean, neatly organized workspace in this state. This step will look a bit different for each of us, since we all have different levels and types of work to keep up with. It will be the 14 year old’s favorite step (she’s great at creating processes).

SUSTAIN. Set up a discipline system, to ensure that our workspaces stay in the same standard from the previous step. The question we all must answer: how are we going to maintain the standard — what specific effort does this involve? And how do we systematize it? I see this involving a regular rotation of cards on the board, to remind us to maintain the order we’ve created.

What I found most interesting in implementing the 5Ss at my work station was the results-to-complexity ratio. It was a simple, easy activity that only took a couple of hours to implement, and yet I've saved that amount of time many times over, by knowing exactly where to look for saved work, having all my appointments and deadlines for a given day in one easily visible place, and having a place to put everything before it becomes clutter

- Cameron Ford, Lean Enterprise Institute

I’m hopeful we’ll experience a similar outcome!

[kanbankid]

A fellow kanban-ing lawyer shared this picture with me (in our Agile Attorneys Slack team), of her family’s new kanban board. She says, “[I] put together a simple kanban board for the preschool routine for my four kids with swim lanes this week and it worked awesome from the 3 year old to the teenager.  Should have thought to bring the kanban home from the office before. Great!” 

Love to hear how kanban is working for other families. Many thanks for sharing, Kelly!

[kanbankid]

a quick tip for the working, kanban-ing parent.

I came across this post a while ago on Harvard Business Review’s blog. It’s point: identify those gaps in between meetings and other scheduled events, and make the most of this “unscheduled” time. Include this time in your daily planning each morning. (Or the night before, my preference.)

This brief post in Lifehacker reminded me that your kanban board is the perfect partner in making the most of this in-between meeting time, to keep up with various family-related tasks.

By example, I spent 10 minutes this morning (in between meetings!) to organize the upcoming family hiking trip on Trello. That card has now been moved into my personal kanban “done” column. 

I also note, as pointed out by a commenter to the Lifehacker post, that those few minutes of unscheduled time can also be used for absolutely nothing. In fact, I think we should all have DO NOTHING cards on our kanban boards. And move them regularly from “doing” to “done.” Our brains and bodies need the downtime! (This goes for our kids, too.)

[kanbankid]

kata and the 5 questions.

A kata is a pattern, routine or habit. Originally from martial arts, it’s about training your brain and body to automatically respond in a specific way. By practicing the routine, you create new neural pathways that reinforce behavior. By practicing the improvement kata daily, you get to change your behavior, which changes your thinking.

- The Daily Standup

Another concept from agile that fits in nicely with parenting? Kata. I can think of many practical applications, approached from the perspective of helping your kids embrace the concept of continuous improvement. 

But there’s one in particular that I’m focusing on here. Something that I struggle with and have an inkling that other parents do, too.

THIS: How do you get your kids to talk about what they’re doing at school? To really share, and get you involved in what they’re learning, how they’re learning it, and what they’re interested in? 

I can tell you what’s NOT effective. Asking questions like, “So, what did you do at school today?” No. You need a more agile approach. 

And I think I found one. I’ve been studying and experimenting with the five questions concept in my own work, but hadn’t connected it to the subject at hand. Until I came across this post, which did it for me.

The post is intended for teachers (and I’ll be covering the topic from their perspective in one of my work blogs), but it’s imminently relevant to parent-child conversations and offers a practical a solution to my dilemma.

The questions: 

#1. What do you think?

#2. Why do you think that?

#3. How do you know this?

#4. Can you tell me more?

#5. What questions do you still have?

The teacher who shares these questions points out that asking simple, declarative questions is a great way to get her students thinking and talking. It works equally well at home, for the same reasons.

In practice, I’m finding that asking my children to talk about one thing they worked on at school that day — ideally something that really challenged them — leads into a great conversation when prompted by these five questions. 

Or the questions come up while they’re working on homework. As a rule, we parents don’t get involved in homework, but using the five questions to get the kids focused works well, especially if the work is particularly challenging. And the bonus: I get a peek into their minds, and their school work.

With all of this said, there are days that not much appears to happen at school (!), so we don’t get far with the five questions. But I’m going to keep asking. Not only because I want to be connected to what my kids are doing in the seven hours they’re spending at school, but also because I believe these five questions are a good kata for them to develop. Asking questions, and developing relentless curiosity? Central to a lifelong habit of learning. 

[kanbankid]

This post offers detailed directions on using Trello and IFTTT to create what essentially is a very simplified kanban board (two lanes: To Do and Done).

If your family uses digital devices to manage its to-dos, this is a fantastic (and efficient) option.

[kanbankid]

sometimes work doesn’t look like work (+ 5 more agile principles that apply to everything)

I came across this article via Twitter at precisely the right moment. 

The kiddos (now in 5th and 8th grades) just returned to school this week. 

It hasn’t been pretty. 

Already, the 5th grader has forgotten a school book for homework. And the next day, he forgot to do part of his homework (even after being asked, “Did you do all your homework?” And answering yes. He’s 11. I’m not checking his folder anymore. If he doesn’t do it, he faces the consequences ... ). 

I think things are going better with the 8th grader, but ... she’s gotten scary-good at knowing exactly what to say to appease me. Regardless, she’s already complaining about the workload this year requires. 

So even though we had a family meeting the night before school began (during which we discussed organizing, planning, using kanban), I’m thinking we’re not feelin’ it. Not the way I’d like. Not the way that’s going to get us off to a *great* start with the school year.

So, enter the article. It neatly laid out six principles that suddenly give me something to hang my conversations with the kids on. I have an angle. A hook. Six of them, actually. I agree completely with the post’s author that these agile principles apply to everything. Even family life. 

Without further ado, here they are:

The application to our family’s work? Pretty much the same as it is in the workplace. "The work is in the thinking, not the typing. Brainstorming, talking, even goofing around with team members -- that's all part of it. Sometimes the best ideas and solutions come not from constant, head-down coding but from letting go. It's not 'fingers on keyboards' that count, it's 'heads in the game.’” 

Embracing this and really valuing it makes so much sense when it comes to the work we do as a family — whether it’s house-work or home-work. The process of talking about the work, and how we’re going to approach it, is meaningful. It leads to insight. It’s part of how we get the kiddos’ heads in the game.

The steps of plan, develop, complete, test and release — performed as sprints? This correlates directly to much of what we tackle as a family. We can follow this process as we figure out so many things: what should the screen time policy be this school year? How are we handling getting house work done around home work and football and volleyball (and screen time)? How are the kids handling big school projects as they come along? How is the 8th grader handling test prep this year (because it’s going to take a different approach than last year)? 

If you think about it, family life includes many different kinds of processes and systems. Acknowledging this, and being intentional about how you plan, develop, complete, test, and release them? A concrete step towards a functional, healthy family life that supports everyone’s needs and goals.

Do you have kids? Then I shouldn’t have to explain this one. Embrace chaos. OR break it down.

Breaking it down works exactly the same way at home as it does at work. Overwhelming? Too many moving parts? Can’t get it done? Or even started?

Slice and dice until the work exists in manageable chunks. Then fit the time within which you have to do the work. I see this being a brilliant strategy for the 8th grader to adopt as she faces some big school projects this year.

Embrace the chaos may mean something altogether different in the family setting than in an agile work team setting. But the result is the same: keep asking the questions, breaking it down, and eventually what needs to get done, gets done.

By focusing on capacity — what work the family team can get accomplished — the result is often an increase in speed in getting said work accomplished. As the article notes, focusing on capacity in and of itself often leads to increased velocity (speed): “To increase capacity we use Agile to develop skills, increase knowledge, improve tools, share work efficiently, reduce inefficiencies and reduce waste -- and that helps us move faster.” This applies to families, too.

“Done is a fluid concept.” I can’t express how helpful it is to embrace this as reality. In all things in life. If, as a family, we can accept that nothing is ever really done, then we’re one step closer to embracing continual improvement.

Yes, at some point you must put certain things down and say, “This is done.” But for many things, this doesn’t apply. The processes and systems we use to get things done around the house, for instance, really should be in constant flux. The whole point is understanding when a process we set up isn’t working, figuring out why, and tweaking so it works better. Involving the kids in this investigation results in improvements that they’re invested in. 

“There’s no such thing as done, there’s only improvement.” Words to live by.

(Is it weird that my kids use the phrase “dreadful constancy” with confidence?)

I’m not even going to paraphrase here, it so aptly applies to the family team. Straight from the article: 

"In doing the work, we learn about doing the work. We all do different work, and there's no real ‘right way’ to make products, or to make products work perfectly. You have to do your own agile. You have to find your own way, what works for your company and your projects and your teams. But what you'll find, what agile will prove to you, is that prevention is better than correction. That constant iteration is better than getting all the way to the end and realizing you've failed.”

[kanbankid]

back to school with kanban.

As I’m combing through the copious communications from my kiddos’ school about back-to-school to-do items, my head started throbbing. Literally. It’s too hot and sunny and summery to be thinking about going back to school. Right? 

I took a deep breath, looked around me, and saw the family kanban board. Solution in hand. In this instance, kanban worked better than a Tylenol. 

In about 10 minutes, I created this board on Trello. I started categories, added to-do items (with deadlines!), shared it with the family. And instantly felt better. (And as the to-do list grows, instead of groaning, I just add it to the board.)

Admittedly, the board isn’t organized in true kanban style. Each list is a category of stuff that needs to get done, with the to-dos for each category listed on cards for each list. For my actual board, I’ve assigned due dates for various cards so I get reminder notifications, which I then populate into my daily workflow list in Workflowy. 

The image below shows a portion of the back-to-school board template I’ve created — access it directly HERE. Feel free to copy and adapt for your own use.

I’ve knocked out about half the to-dos since creating the board. Seeing cards disappear as the to-dos are accomplished? Very satisfying.

The kids’ to-dos also go on cards, on the family kanban board in the kitchen. Reading is already in the “doing” lane. As is math. The writing? Still in the “to do” lane. Being on the board, as a constant reminder, will keep these items moving through the kiddos’ summer workflow. On the board above, the kids’ individual to-dos are hidden in the board view — when you click on the card, the full checklist is revealed:

I’m going to track the non-kid to-dos in Trello, and not on the kanban board. (There currently are a lot of summer projects in the “to do” and “doing” lanes ... not much room for the granular details from the back-to-school Trello board. So the granular details shall stay there.)

I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before, to manage the back-to-school grind with kanban via Trello. Glad it finally did. 

[kanbankid]

lessons on running an agile family

From Bruce Feiler’s WSJ article “Run Your Family Like a Business”:

(1) Empower your children: “Children who plan their own time, set weekly goals and evaluate their own work become more internally driven and have greater self-control.”

(2) We parents aren’t invincible: We don’t know everything, and just as top-down leadership is bad in business, it’s bad for families. A successful team lets all members contribute.

(3) Build in flexibility: “The agile family philosophy embraces the ever-changing nature of families today and builds in a system to adapt to each new phase.” The rules you create today may not apply tomorrow. Embrace this, instead of fighting it.

(4) Create a family “playbook,” starting with a mission statement: “A central finding of recent research is that parents should spend less time worrying about what they do wrong and more time focusing on what they do right. The family mission statement is a clear way to articulate what your family does right. It also creates a touchstone.”

(5) Families have conflict and must solve problems. A successful family has strategies in place to handle these challenges:

“Abundant research has shown that groups, especially if they include nonexperts, are better at making decisions than individuals.”

“As the psychologist Daniel Kahneman points out in Thinking Fast and Slow, you'll reach a smarter conclusion if everyone expresses their views at the outset, before anyone has spoken. Otherwise, those who speak first will have too much influence.”

“Groups with more women are more sensitive to others and reach compromise more quickly.”

[kanbankid]

desktop as kanban board

All on her own, the 13 year old turned her school-issued MacBook Air desktop into a kanban board. Looking over her shoulder a couple of months ago, I noticed that her school work life appeared to exist as stickies, organized in kanban fashion, on her desktop. Huh. 

Casually (because that’s how you ask a 13 year old questions ...), I asked her about the stickies. She says to me that she was using the stickies app before I introduced kanban into our family life, and that she realized the stickies would work like our family kanban board, so she just started doing it. Again, huh.

It appears that, quite organically, she started organizing her weekly work via a desktop stickies kanban board, listing out (on yellow stickies) all the work to be done for the week. Work in progress? Stickies get moved to the middle lane, and changed to green. Work that’s been completed? Moved to far right, and changed to blue.

I asked her how she prioritized the work, and she said she lines up the yellow stickies in order of due date (top to bottom), so she knows what to work on first. She also cross-checks periodically with her school planner (calendar), to make sure she’s working on the right thing at the right time.

The image above is a screenshot of her current desktop board — she’s studying for exams, and is creating a new board once a set of exams is finished. She’s set the stickies app to launch automatically, so it’s the first thing she sees when she turns the MBA on. This keeps her focused on her work, she says.

She took the kanban idea and ran with it, in a way that works for her. Huh.

[kanbankid]

A post on how one family uses kanban ... Home Kanban for Domestic Bliss.

[kanbankid]

personal kanban 101

Life Hacker shared a nice post on getting started with personal kanban, and references many resources for putting kanban into action. Worth a read, especially if you're just getting started with kanban. 

[kanbankid]

understanding our role.

This observation was shared by the folks at Personal Kanban via Facebook recently. And it really resonated with me in the context of our family's experiment with kanban. And how it fits in with so much of what I do as a parent.

I realize that using kanban to manage some of our family work/projects does really help clarify what our roles are as members of our family team. And the clarity comes in part from the conversation that surrounds the discussion and identification of these roles. From the figuring out who wants to/should/must do what, and why he/she does/doesn't agree with this. And after a project has been completed, there's often discussion of what went well, what didn't, why he/she doesn't want to do that again, or (hopefully) can't wait to do that again. 

Putting all of this front-and-center makes these conversations possible. And I think that these conversations are helping my kids understand their roles better. Which I think has all kinds of positive benefits. Such as: they know what they're supposed to be doing, so with expectations set it's (presumably) easier for them to prioritize, focus, and do good work. And (hopefully), they're getting a sense of how everyone on the family team has a role that's both important and interdependent. 

Ultimately, it's the experience of both defining their role in our family's projects and seeing how important this role is, that kanban makes so palpable.

This isn't a heavy-handed life lesson. More subtle, one that they may not even realize is being handed them. And quite powerful, if it grounds them and they can experience both the success and failures (of which there are some) in a safe way. 

As an adult, I'm constantly reminded that folks will gladly do what you wish, as long as they know their role. And in so many contexts, I see others failing to clearly define roles (and expectations), and then complaining when things don't go as intended. 

It's a simple point, but a powerful one. Help people understand their roles, and odds are they'll know how to act. 

[kanbankid]

prioritizing with kanban.

I don't think I realized when we first started using kanban as a family that one of the greatest benefits would be teaching my kids how to prioritize the work before them.

Yes, this is a small thing. What do do, when. But the implications of actually figuring out how to prioritize at ages 10 and 13? Pretty immense, actually.

Tasks go on the kanban board in order of priority. Well, they probably go in the "to do" lane in no real order. Most of the time, we're lucky to just get it written down and on the board before someone forgets about it. 

But cards do go into the WIP lane by priority. That's the first step, after identifying something as needing to be done. Exactly when should it be done? Before or after another card already on the board? As much as my rebellious nature chafes at productivity "rules," it really is true that prioritizing what and when you do stuff makes a difference. 

The kids and I have explored the idea that you can knock the "little" stuff out first, feel a sense of accomplishment, and move on to bigger stuff. This is actually a form of prioritizing — making the best use of your time. Maybe trying to clean the bird cage before school isn't the best idea, for example. But refilling the dog food and water? The perfect task to do in the 10 minutes before we walk out the door.

We've also examined priority as a sense of urgency. Feeding the dogs is an urgent task, obviously. Other tasks (cleaning our rooms, for example) appear not so urgent. Until we discuss the fact that friends are coming over and how can we play in our room if it's in absolute disarray? Suddenly, cleaning our room becomes a priority. Yes.

I especially see my 13 year old's skill at prioritizing really blossoming when it comes to her school work. I went to school for a long, long time and at some point learned that prioritizing was the key. Knowing when to get what work done equals success, actually. I sure do wish I had figured this out at 13. 

So, thank you Kanban, for helping me teach my kids this valuable skill!

[kanbankid]

more kaizen.

I recommend this short post on Medium, introducing kaizen as a way of asking small questions to overcome creative block (or, in my case, to help move my kiddos forward in whatever they face at the moment).

Quote: Sam Thomas Davies