Can Kids Learn Agile?
You may be surprised
“We have just one last question”, the manager leading the interview said.
This was the wrap-up for the hour-long session, in what sounded like a lengthy search for the right agile coach to consult with their team.
“Can you tell us what your vision is?”
That was a bit unexpected. I hesitated for a second — actually, when it comes to agile, I do have a vision.
But I wasn’t sure if she or the other two people in the meeting were ready to hear it.
But she asked, so I dived in. I replied:
“Here’s my vision. Imagine one of your colleagues is sitting at the dinner table with his young son or daughter. He’s one of those managers you mentioned that has heard about agile but not sure if it really works.”
I explained that in my vision, the manager asks how was school today.
“Great! We finished Sprint 2 in our science project!”
In my vision, I can see the dumbfounded look on the manager’s face as clear as day. Shaking his head he asks “What??!!”
Later he is thinking to himself:
“Our people at work have been trying to learn agile, but they are struggling. Can kids really learn agile?”
Where it started
Like many parents of young school children, my wife and I had to ask our 11 year-old daughter almost every day:
“Do you have any homework tonight?”
or
“It’s almost bath time. Have you finished your homework?”
The answer was usually a muffled “Hmm..” or some other unintelligible reply.
If we pushed her on the answer, the reaction could turn negative. She would go in her room and say “I’m doing it!” before not-so-gently closing the door.
I thought to myself, surely there must be a better way.
“How can we change this so that she actually wants to show that she is getting her homework done, without constant nagging?”
Then it hit me. What we needed was an information radiator¹ for her homework. A simple kanban board where she could add an assignment, mark it as “in-progress”, and then finally to “done”.
With a few sheets of A3 and a trusty pad of stickies, we soon had a home kanban² board. To show everyone was participating, my wife and I agreed we would also manage our family tasks using the new board.
Did it work?
Below is our family kanban board, with my daughter’s pink stickies. She is very happy to move her stickies from “in progress” to “done”.
Without nagging!
After several months of using the board, we are happy with the results. The board has become the centre of not just her homework, but many family conversations.
So it seems kids can learn agile!
Endnote
Over the past year I’ve had this conversation about kids learning agile with a number of colleagues and found that my daughter, while special to me, is really no exception.
I have learned several colleagues have started to use kanban boards at home, and their kids pick it up in no time.
One friend introduced me to eduScrum³, where school students “work together in an energetic, targeted, effective and efficient way”.
It seems my vision of the manager being surprised that their child is learning agile in school may actually come true one day.
When it does, it will make those difficult conversations of why agile actually works so much easier!
[1]: Information radiator is a display of information posted on a wall where passers-by can see it. https://wiki.c2.com/?InformationRadiator
[2]: Kanban is a lean method to manage and improve work across human systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)
[3]: EduScrum is an adaptation of Scrum for all forms of education. https://www.eduscrum.nl/about/eduscrum
