Play LEGO with us and explore SCRUM with experience-based learning!

The purpose of this event is to find out who will find it easier to master SCRUM – kids or grown-ups. Make your bet!

Honestly, the idea was born during our previous Agile Parenting event. There, we played one game which the kids managed with grace while the parents struggled and failed. Christian Alber, Brigitte’s former colleague and fellow management consultant who had joined together with his lovely family, felt inspired to offer an AgiLego session for our community. We are very grateful for this opportunity!

We will have four teams. Only one can win the game by building the best town out of LEGO blocks.  However, all participants will gain hands-on knowledge how to achieve creative results within a given frame with agile project management.

Join us for an exciting session! If you want to be part of this, please write an email to brigitte@agileparenting.net and let us know how many kids and adults will come and play with us.

This is what Robert, one of our participants shared on LinkedIn. We were totally thriilled about this awesome feedback.

The post AgiLego – The Battle! appeared first on Agile Parenting.

Invest one afternoon and align your goals with your family or partner

How does your New Year resolution of leading a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life fit into the bigger picture of your family? What are other family member’s ideas, whishes and goals?

If you are like us, New Year resolution means a packed to-do-list

The thing is – my next steps might cause conflicts with my spouse’ needs. However, there might be synergies also. We just do not know because we do not share and align our goals within the family. On a smaller scale, Wang Man has already covered this situation with her Agile Holiday Planning. Now we are taking this to the next level.

Turn fuzzy expectations into motivating goals

• There will be group-work and playful experiments with Design Thinking and Gamestorming.
• You will get inspired by the concepts and success factors of other families.
• All participants – grown-ups and children – will contribute alike.
• At the end of the workshop, you will have discussed and documented what you want to achieve as a family until the end of the year. This will be your roadmap for effectively going ahead and reducing mental load aswell.

The workshop is inspired by the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen R. Covey. Just as we do, he takes the principles and tools he preaches to his corporate clients to the private domain.

This workshop format is super for school kids. If you need to bring younger children, please let us know because we need to find a way to keep them happy.

The main target group is families. Couples and families that do not fit into the classic definition will enjoy it just as much.

When?

Saturday, February 24, 2024

14:00-18:00

Where?

KITCHEN2SOUL

Schlörstraße 4, München/Neuhausen

Cover Charge?

We charge EUR 30 per family for snacks and drinks.

The post Family New Year Resolution Workshop appeared first on Agile Parenting.

What is Mom360?

Over the course of roughly one and a half years, young mothers are enabled to juggle family and job. Following a holistic approach, it involves HR, mentors, managers and partners alike.

How do we do it?

Before maternity leave

The program starts before maternity leave and involves HR, the mentor or manager and – of course – the female employee herself. During this phase, the mother-to-be develps a rounded target picture which represents a 360degree view of her situation.

During maternity leave

Mothers receive regular coaching sessions (and may bring their babies) which support the transition into this new set-up. They cultivate management and leadership capabilities to successfully navigate the new situation. Furthermore, we introduce a range of tools to strengthen resilience.

When juggling career and kids, the partner can play a pivotal role. Therefore, one workshop is dedicated to aligning targets and tasks within the support system. We are more than happy to include partners who want to join.

Swinging back

When the female high-performer comes back, regular sessions offer a space to reflect and adjust. Workload management is at the core of these meetings.

How does it work?

Wang Man and Brigitte are experienced change managers and coaches by training. On top of this they can reach out to a network of managers/coaches/mothers who are just as excited as they are to deliver this program. Where needed they can cover specific requrements like industry knowledge oder process know-how.

The post Mom360 keeps mothers’ career planning and companies’ need for talent aligned appeared first on Agile Parenting.

Join us for the Agile Parenting launch event!

We are thinking about a very easy evening: Drinks (with and without alcohol but definitely slightly glamorous) and snacks, conversations, cheerfulness!

Agile Games will be at the core of this evening.

We prepare activities that are fun and interesting for grown-ups and kids, alike. So, do not hesitate to bring your children.

We are envisioning a crowd that is curious to find out what Wang Man and Brigitte are actually doing when they talk about Agile Parenting. What might be even more fascinating is meeting the people who are interested in learning more and experimenting a bit themselves.

Play is the highest form of research.

Albert Einstein

We will start at a 6pm since we encourage you to also bring your kids. There will be a brief theoretical introduction followed by games and experience-based learning stations for you and your family. It is also ok to come without family, though! Everyone is welcome who believes agile can be helpful in many ways – beyond software develoment.

When?

October 24, 2023

18:00-22:00

Where?

KITCHEN2SOUL

Schlörstraße 4, München-Neuhausen

Find out how this went! We had a blast with so many families leaning in and joining us for some very serieous agile gaming:

You have further questions?

contact us via info@agileparenting.net

The post Drinks & Agile Games appeared first on Agile Parenting.

„Agile Parenting“ is based on the principles of agile project management. It plays with its tools, methods and the radically customer-centric and purpose-driven mindset. When we started it, Agile helped us to get a grip on this challenge: How do we help our kids to enter the world?

The original Manifesto for Agile Software Development was drafted by American IT experts in 2002, as a consequence of industry frustration.

They had experienced too often, that the created software did not meet the requirements that had been defined at the beginning of the project due to

• too little involvement of the future users,
• command-and-control communication instead of open discussion and a
• lack of sincere search for the best solution.

The alternative they were looking for was pure value creation, which meant to them: Sustainable results in short lead time, high morale, safety, quality, customer delight.

Parents also feel frustrated.

1.      Families feel stressed due to high workload, social obligations and financial pressure. Maybe more importantly, they feel trapped in routines and social norms which they follow – while being aware that often they do not benefit them.(http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006391/how-one-obscure-word-captures-urban-chinas-unhappiness

• Formal schooling is facing a massive crisis on a global scale. Children just do not learn skills for the 21^st century. They are not prepared for the professions we do not know yet but will be the economic drivers in the future. Most schools do not teach healthy learning habits. They do not foster curiosity. Instead of increasing resilience and solution-orientation, schools make children feel bored and fearful.
• Family life is not how we expected it to be. Too often it is not a save space for everyone, filled with love and laughter, where we can re-charge and relax from our busy lives. Instead, there is conflict, fatigue and un-met needs. More and more parents and children suffer from anxieties and need treatment.

The Agile Manifesto claims that the items on the right are important but the items on the left are crucial.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

https://agilemanifesto.org/

“Responding to change over following a plan” is most likely natural for all families. Who has not experienced packing bags for a highly anticipated weekend getaway and the night before the kindergarten kids starts vomiting? However, the idea behind this item is even bigger. It encourages us to venture forward with as few items as possible on our bucket list and just look where the journey takes us. It encourages us to work with what we have. My child is a gifted artist but I envisioned a career as a lawyer for her. What is better? Item from the left or from the right?

This requires a lot of solution-driven, regular, structured communication. Agile project management has developed a bag of tools to institutionalize this, e.g. KANBAN boards, product backlog, review and retrospective. All of them can be used effectively by agile families.

The manifesto is further explained by the 12 agile principles. Not all are fully relevant in the family context. https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html. These are the ideas we find important:

Self-organization is covered by various principles. In the corporate world as in the family realm, it requires a lot of personal growth by parents and coaching for kids until it really works. When your primary school kid insists on packing her school bag herself and then forgets her snack box, she will be hungry that day or ask her friends to share their snack with them. When your middle-school kid resists studying for a test, parents do not force him, and he gets a bad mark in the end, this will teach him a lesson. Either he embraces the assistance parents are willing to give him or he studies better by himself the next time.

Empowering your children is very important according to Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson They gives tons of scientific evidence why in their book The Self-Driven Child. Kids need to be allowed to fail on their own terms. This is the prerequisite for the deep knowledge that they have control over themselves. This experience actually builds up the frontal cortex in the brain.

Translated into the domain of family life “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” means that what we do needs to serve us as human beings. Some social norms like dressing nicely or keeping proper hygiene can give useful guidance on how to prosper socially and physically. Other unwritten rules, like which clothing brands you have to wear or when it is time for a child to stop playing with their cuddly toys can add pressure or even damage an individual.

Bruce Feller Adapt gives a good example in his TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_feiler_agile_programming_for_your_family?language=ry

Family dinner is a good idea but might be overrated and actually not fit the family situation. Instead of forcing this ritual, it can be better to re-frame it and define the target to spend 10 minutes of meaningful time together every day. This can be any time, not limited to dinner. According to Feller, happy families have an above average ability to adapt.

Furthermore, this item reminds us that it is not possible to draw lines with a ruler when it comes to human beings who are continuously changing. Organizing daily tasks with a KANBAN board might work well for a while and suddenly does not do the trick any more. Instead of forcing the daily standup on everyone it is better to find out how to adjust – or replace – this procedure.

As parents, we often look for proofs that we are doing the right thing. “Working software over comprehensive documentation” can serve as a reminder to focus on the actual outcome. For instance, this can mean that it is more important that my child enjoys playing the piano than winning piano competitions. Another example is not to measure learning success of a child by the hours she studied or the number of pages he read in a book but simply by assessing how much they truly learned and understood.

The idea “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation” can be the most radical when applied to family life. The way we live it, it means that we communicate a lot, align expectations and needs of all family members and each member takes responsibility for everyone else. This is the contrary of order-and-control, which is often found in corporate and in family life where one person or group sets the rules and everyone else has to follow, receives and completes tasks. Don’t get us wrong: A top-down leadership style is not necessarily a bad thing and it can be vital in times of crises.

Agile emphasizes teamwork. One of its values is to give power for decisions to those who know best. Most of the time these are not the superiors or line managers but the individuals who execute the task on a daily basis. This challenges the “old normal” of hierarchies. In the context of agile parenting, this means that parents need to learn to trust that children can and should make important decisions for themselves. Children make decisions, the whole family gives constant feedback. For small kids this may mean that they may pick the clothes they want to wear even if this does not exactly reflect the color-coding you had in your mind for the dinner in that fancy restaurant. If children do not practice taking small decisions how can we expect them to take educated big decisions when they are teenagers or grown-ups?

Most importantly, fluid collaboration requires that team members work together daily. It is a reminder to have quality conversations every day beyond “how was your day?” Instead, they can cook and clean together, craft, draw or plan the next holiday together (link zu agile holiday). At home and at work the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Simplicity. The art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential: eliminate waste, build quality in. For families this can mean the adoption of minimalism: Why drive your child to school when she can take a bus? Why travelling overseas as appropriate for people of our status when everyone in our family would have more fun by just renting a cottage in the mountains? Why searching for your keys every morning instead of having the routine of putting keys at the same spot every time you enter your home? Why buying an extra wardrobe for all those clothes instead of sticking to a capsule wardrobe where you can mix and match everything and need much less?

The 12 Agile Principles do not explicitly cover our love for Experiment J. This is hidden within principle 1 and 3. Agile projects in the corporate world aim at producing an MVP, a minimum viable product as soon as possible. They start with a workable solution and only later add features as they learn about their customers’ additional needs and desires. The basic truth behind this: It is better to benefit from an 80% solution quickly – and then take it from there – than never reach the perfect 120% solution.

Most importantly, the Agile Principles emphasize Excellence and Sustainability. In the corporate world agile often is a pretext for sloppiness and lack of focus and planning. This is a crass misunderstanding. The product idea of a happy family where everyone can develop according to their talents and aspirations is a massive goal that does not allow half-heartedness.

If you are practicing agile parenting, please let us know why you do it and how. We are always thrilled to learn more. There is so much inspiration out there!

The post This Is Agile Parenting: Apply Best Practices From Work And Observe Positive Impact At Home appeared first on Agile Parenting.

Wang Man is a passionate admirer of Elon Musk in particular and anyone wearing a wizard hat in general. She claimed over our first round of cocktails that CoVid-19 would change everything.

Me, a fan of anything playful without being totally silly, stated that everything would stay the same. This was about to become an amazing evening. I knew it!

We talked about our experiences with homeschooling. This had been the most disruptive experience in our family lives since the birth of our children. We both thought we had been doing quite well. Compared to those families under complete stress where panicking tiger mums and exhausted kids screamed and struggled until 10pm every day. Or those that quietly had started to ignore the daily emails from school at some point because peace, quiet and harmony were valued higher than the need to keep up with academic expectations.

These were the main challenges

We tapped into each other’s experiences and expertise of pulling through the past months, which had posed these challenges for us:

• Kids needed to be cared for the whole day without the normal eight hours of school. Squeezing in an eight hour working day at the same time was exhausting – to put it mildly. Furthermore, for your kindergarten and primary school kids this being-with-mum-at-home clearly signaled: “Holiday!” and not “This is like school, just at home”.
• Teaching is a profession and we were not trained for this. As a management consultant you have the advantage that “fake it till you make it” is your mantra. Looking reasonably convincing when doing things you had never done before is a basic skill for succeeding in this profession. Anyway, delivering the content hidden behind and next to the worksheets our daughters received from school on a daily basis was difficult. How was I to explain the use of expressive language in creative writing? My own learning experience at a German public primary school forty years ago had mainly taught me to avoid spelling mistakes.
• This mysterious disease around us, closing borders, quarantine, fuzzy regulations – this all created a sense of insecurity and vulnerability that spilled into every domain of life.

And these were the bonuses

However, we both had also seen many positive things happening because of this situation.

• Spending so much time with our kids meant that we got to know each other much better. This might sound strange and when I asked my nine year old daughter about this, she disagreed. She thinks she always knew me perfectly well. For me however, many of the deep conversations I had with my girl who is slipping from childhood into her pre-teen world, could only take place under these intense circumstances. We cherished the the new slow pace of everything.
• The more organic flow of our days also eliminated most of the stress. Kids could sleep in. This is something my daughter enjoys. After breakfast she would do her tasks from school until early afternoon. Afterwards, she could go and play with her friends until dinnertime. Instead of rigid schedules we now had the chance to listen to our many needs. This involved either playing with toys in between or spontaneous ice cream treats when a creative writing piece had come out particularly well – or not well.
• Less social stress for our children that comes from competition in class, conflicts during playtime and teachers losing their nerves and shouting.
• Better diet and relaxed meals with home-cooked food. Instead of ordering food or fixing quick dinners we celebrated life by putting much more effort than usually possible into cooking. The stomach problems my daughter has had for years completely disappeared. Furthermoer, eating together with the whole family after a long day of homeschooling and home-office was a very warm experience of simple pleasures.

Trust your daughters to get the job done

Still, we had to find ways to make home-schooling work while continuing to deliver professionally. We had no choice but to:

1. Hand over a big chunk of responsibility for academic achievement to our daughters. There was no way we could micro-manage their learning on a daily basis.
2. Involve our kids in the communication with teachers or let them communicate directly by zoom or email. Being the usual disseminator of information in both directions was not doable.
3. Equip our daughters with access to all tools necessary to complete their tasks. This included devices like ipads and passwords. They had to download zoom and MS teams and connect the newly bought color printer themselves.

Wang Man and I had just ordered our second drink at the bar which claimed to use ingredients based on traditional Chinese medicine, when we both got the idea that… you know… this is like agile…

What we were doing is Agile Parenting!

At that same evening, we also found out that we had quite different agile parenting styles. Wang Man is more the SCRUM type. For instance, she had organized the tasks for her daughter Sophie into compulsory and optional tasks. The rule was that the compulsory tasks had to be finished by Friday every week. Optional tasks that were academic but fun, could be done at her kids’ discretion.

The underlying logic was, that the compulsory tasks could be accomplished within three days if Sophie, a first grader, worked on them consistently. Then the rest of the week would be free for playing or she could do optional tasks. Wang Man and Sophie discussed the content of the tasks and the expected outcome at the beginning of the week. Then they did a rough planning on how to distribute them over the week.

When that was all agreed, Sophie was free to do her own scheduling and re-shuffle work if she found that appropriate. Wang Man had equipped her daughter with a recommendation but at the same time empowered her to find a schedule that suited her best. She could take decisions herself as long as she stuck to that one basic rule.

SCRUM and agile values

In retrospective, the starting point for myself was not so much SCRUM but rather the agile values. I had never made the conscious choice to do so, though. I have been supporting companies to introduce agile project management for years. The underlying mind-set seemed to be a natural way of managing homeschooling.

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development is a reaction to the frustration of the industry in the 1990’s. At that time it was usual to do software projects with the very rigid waterfall system over long time-spans. The result often was perfectly executed software – which unfortunately came too late because since the beginning of the project the world had changed. These are its core ideas:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

In my case this meant that I took all the schooling materials we were provided by school as a guideline to manage learning, not as law. The purpose of homeschooling – and the freedom that came with it – was to fill gaps and work at my daughter’s pace and according to her capabilities. When there we assignments we did not regard as very valuable, Antonia did not do them. Instead, she included enhancing her German into the daily routine.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

All the work Antonia did was for her, not for the school. We ignored all “learner of the week” competitions that rather had the purpose to “market” the fact that she was a hard-working student. The only metric for us was to keep up with the academic level expected at the end of grade 4.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Homeschooling was not just a massive change for us, it was also tough for the teachers. Suddenly they were doing zoom calls instead of interacting with the kids directly, being able to get real-time feedback on how they felt about the tasks. I encouraged Antonia to utilize the few touchpoints she had by attending the daily remote calls. Most of the time she was the only attendant at her Chinese class. This made her even more diligent in showing up at that weekly call at Friday noon – to show her lovely teacher her appreciation and add human touch at a time when we were all craving it.

Responding to change over following a plan

• Sometimes you start very motivated and plan to accomplish a lot of tasks – just to find out that some of them are really tough and time-consuming and you cannot do them all.
• You might also want to re-consider your plans, when the weather is just gorgeous and the air quality below 50 pm 2.5 and it would be such a waste not to play outdoors with your friends the whole afternoon.
• A change of direction is also needed when an assignment that could have been done on a small scale develops into something really interesting and meaningful. It suddenly fills the whole day until dinner time.

Whenever we had the feeling it would create value to change the plan we had agreed on in the morning, we did so. The plan was there to help us structure the day, nothing else.

For us this meant that every morning we planned what could realistically be achieved. Whenever changes were needed later on, we discussed what to do: Was it ok to totally skip a task, scale it down or move it? My purpose was to empower Antonia to a certain extent to also make decisions by herself. I did not have the time and capacity to watch her every minute since I had to work and attend meetings. There was the urgent need to create a very strong sense of ownership for her overall learning.

Wang Man and I felt very excited about this discovery. We therefore decided to explore the possibilities of applying agile and SCRUM further and in a more structured way and called it “Agile Parenting”. This is how it started 😉

The post How it all started: Wang Man And Brigitte Hacked Parenting 4.0 appeared first on Agile Parenting.

My friend Eryka, remarkable as always, told me this:

She grew up in the 80s on a farm in rural Poland. Her parents kept the equivalent of around 1.000 Euros in a drawer. When Eryka or her sisters needed money or wanted to buy something for themselves, they went to the drawer, took the money and wrote on a slip of paper when and how much they took.

Their parents never asked what they used it for.

And the girls or young women never took advantage and grabbed more than they needed or spent it irresponsibly.

The post Pocket Money: Trust Is The Starting Point For Everything appeared first on Agile Parenting.