What If I Had A Slack Card?

Showing Slack Card

“All things in moderation, including moderation.”― Mark TwainIn yesterday’s post, you may have noticed that we have a “Slack Card” in our Personal Kanban for the day.The problem we, like most people, were having was this:Productivity feels good.The Zone feels good.But productivity and the zone can lead to burnout.Just like Pomodoro includes rests every 25 minutes, we wanted to include a Pomodoro that was nothing but slack.What we assumed was that we have eight half hour pomodoros in an eight hour work day.Interruptions, non-focused tasks, and other minutia tend to make pomodoros not start back-to-back.Of those eight, the slack card is kind of a “get out of jail free” card. It can let you spend a free half hour just resting, it can be spent collaborating on less focused tasks, it can be used to “throw away” if interruptions stop you from being able to do one of your Pomodoro.  Ultimately it’s a visual place holder for an option. You be the judge.

WIP: The Kidzban Book

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My dad was magical.

When I was growing up, he turned everything into a game - studying, yard work, even combatting my fear of the Wicked Witch of the West. "Life should be fun!" he'd insist, invoking his own father's optimism, a dictum in broken Italian dialect I struggle to remember but have long since forgotten. I can't say if it was by way of nature or nurture, but there’s no doubt the DeMaria men believed in enjoying life. When situations that were decidedly unpleasant presented themselves, they simply viewed them as opportunities to get creative.And creative they got.Whether it was setting the seemingly interminable list of prepositions I had to learn by rote to the tune of Pop! Goes the Weasel (

About, above, across, after, against, among, ar-rou-uuund!

), or sending me into the science class I struggled with carrying a Tupperware container filled with a freshly butchered calf's brain (can I still distinguish between the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata? you betcha!), my father believed life was too short not to make even difficult tasks enjoyable.And then came the bane of my existence: Mr. Pittman's history class. I despised it, and the 10 pound textbook that I'm still convinced was written to combat chronic insomnia. All those foreign names to pronounce! All those dates to remember!

Boooor-ring

was my justification for coming perilously close to failing an exam. But my father assured me, "they're just stories," after which he proceeded to re-create tales from Greek mythology casting all my friends as characters. Thousands of "stories" and two history degrees later, I couldn't agree with him more. Life - even the tedious parts - should be fun. With a little creativity in fact, they can be fun

and

educational.That's why I had to write this post. And why Kidzban is so important to me.

For the past year and a half, Jim and I have heard from countless people - some from as far away as South Africa and Japan - all excited to share inspiring accounts of how they use Personal Kanban (and a little creativity) to inspire their children. Among the most common uses for “Kidzban” (as we’ve affectionately come to call it) involves visualizing and tracking progress as it relates to household chores, family projects, homework and exam prep, extracurricular activities, religious pursuits, and even confidence building initiatives.

Lately however, another group of Kidzban practitioners is emerging. Increasingly we’re hearing from teachers and home educators who are using it with great success in and beyond the “traditional” classroom. In an attempt to maximize student performance - and make learning fun - they are utilizing Kidzban to establish course goals, visualize homeschool curriculum workflow, track progress (relative to the student’s personal best as well as to that of their peers), identify strengths and weakness, and implement and monitor solutions.We look forward to sharing many of their stories with you in the upcoming publication from Modus Cooperandi Press

Kidzban

, the follow-up to our recently released

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.

So why all the enthusiasm about some sticky notes on a whiteboard, you ask?Personal Kanban creates a narrative of  “work” comprehensible to people of all ages and learning styles. Work ceases to be a collection of unrelated tasks and instead becomes a series of events that impact each other and flow from one to the next. With just a glance, users see the things they do well, identify areas that cause them to struggle, and gauge the distance from their goal. In the context of Personal Kanban - or Kidzban, in this case - struggle is not construed of as a failure but rather, as an opportunity for improvement. As a visual radiator, Personal Kanban lets the user know their success simply requires an alternate path. When that happens, they can look for root causes and then going forward, they can adjust their actions to suit.Personal Kanban transforms our “work” into a system. It takes even the most tedious tasks and turns them into a game that’s appropriate for all ages.Consistent among the stories we’ve heard is how children become excited about taking on even the most unpopular or even boring tasks, like picking up their toys or writing the letter “G” until they perfect it or making sure Fido has enough kibble in his bowl.Not only is this "game" a simple one, but it’s an evolutionary one, too. Because Personal Kanban reflects our ever-changing context, it creates a game with an ever changing board. It’s a game we can improve upon, so boredom is kept at bay.Children “beating” their siblings (and even their parents) by completing the most chores becomes commonplace. Students “compete” not only with their classmates but with themselves, finishing their lessons quicker and with less error. In both cases we’ve discovered that upon task completion, kids often seek additional tasks, incentivized by the satisfaction they get from moving yet another sticky note into the “Done” column.Games can assume myriad forms, from head-to-head battles, to problem solving, to role-play. Depending on the circumstance, kids can find themselves besting their brothers and sisters in individual performance, or they can team up - “swarm” on a problem to solve it quickly and effectively. Parents and educators alike are using visualization to build creative games aimed at specific outcomes and to reward specific behaviors.In the end, the games themselves become an education.Whether it entails chores or schoolwork, being able to visualize and focus on the task at hand as part of a system - with immediate and ultimate goals - allows kids to see their action’s trade-offs while learning the best way to exercise their options. They take responsibility for their action (as well as their inaction), and feel pride in a job well done, establishing their independence and buttressing their self-esteem.Kidzban curtails arguments, energizes families, and leaves kids empowered.As a visual radiator, the board offers reinforcement for their efforts. Every member of the family can see that they’ve been effective, that they contribute value. When one person gets hung up, they know where help is needed.So tell us - how are YOU innovating with Kidzban? Are you interested in sharing your experiences or visualizations, or just want to hear more from other practitioners? Whether you’re a parent or educator or even a kid, we invite you to become part of the emerging Kidzban community of practice.On Facebook:“Like” the Personal Kanban page on Facebook to meet and engage with others interested in Kidzban.On Twitter:Whether you have questions, ideas, or experiences you want to share, be sure to add the hashtag #kidzban to your Tweet to ensure other members of the Kidzban community can join in on the conversation.In the interim, be sure to check out some of our favorite Kidzban practitioners:For an innovative approach to chores, see Janice’s

One Kid'z Kanban Board

For ways to use Kidzban throughout the home, see Maritza’s

Becoming and Agile Family

For incorporating Kidzban in the classroom, see Patty’s

Not Out of Reach

And last but certainly not least...Recently I had the extreme pleasure of stumbling upon the most delightful yet profoundly insightful videologs from two of Kidzban’s most perceptive practitioners: siblings Jillian and JoHanna - ages 8 and 11 respectively who, later with the help of 3 year old Joy - are Kidzban rockstars (and agilistas in the making). Don’t miss their dad Joseph’s

Saturday Chores with Kanban

series, part I and part II.

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part I

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part II

And it's just a hunch, but judging by the fun these young ladies are having helping out with the housework, I'm fairly certain they feel their dad is magical, too.

Image by Sprezzatura.

Democratize Meetings with Personal Kanban

Agendas are so 20th Century.

Personal kanban and meetings

Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills are known for their exclusive neighborhoods, sprawling estates, and the people who inhabit them. They aren’t (but should be) known for their perilous and serpentine roadways. Among the most treacherous is Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Those familiar with the area don’t seem to give the twisting roads a second thought. They maneuver down snug stretches of this automotive obstacle course at 60 mph, because it’s become second nature to them. In contrast, newcomers to the area - sweat beading up on their temples - cautiously crawl along at a snail’s pace, at once in awe at the glorious homes around them and terrified they’ll veer off the road and through a gilded gate at the very next bend.When you are familiar with something, you take it for granted. You aren’t critical of it and so you tend to blast right through it. Just consider what happens when we call a meeting. Are we looking for what we are already familiar with? Are we basing the meeting on our assumptions and expectations that come from past experiences? Are we just going to “blast through it?” Or are we taking it slow - as a learning opportunity - in an attempt to expose hidden insights that can actually help us achieve our goals?

“The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.”- Shigeo Shingo (Toyota)

When you set an agenda, you control the conversation. In essence, you define your own road. When you control the agenda, you control the lessons learned. Since we enter a meeting with only our assumptions to guide us, agendas follow our assumptions. Our assumptions are based on what we already know. But what about the things we don’t know? Quite often, it’s the conversations we don’t plan on that give us the most insight. Why not instead run our meetings to learn or to discover?About a year ago, Jeremy Lightsmith and I discussed starting a professional organization around Lean management. We figured that if we controlled the agenda, we'd control the thought. If we controlled the thought, we'd never get beyond our own thinking. Jeremy and I wanted to grow a community - starting in Seattle - but we also wanted to grow as individuals.So we set up Lean Coffee. This popular, agenda-less weekly meeting has taken us in directions we never anticipated. Held in a local coffee shop, and with a totally open format, we begin each gathering by setting up a table-top Personal Kanban. Participants vary from week to week, but whoever shows up is free to grab some sticky notes, and populate the backlog with items they’d like to discuss.  Everyone gets two votes for which topics they want to discuss first. This builds the prioritization. The agenda and the order are both popularly devised.

It's that simple. A kanban for a Lean Coffee might look like this:

Lean Coffee has spawned an active community in Seattle and increasingly in other cities like Stockholm, Toronto and San Francisco. More are coming. The best thing about Lean Coffee is that it has already outgrown its founders. Since we never set the agenda in the first place, Jeremy and I could start the ball rolling and step back.Lean Coffee takes place every week at 8:30 am in Seattle whether we are there or not. It is now truly an open forum for learning.

Learning from a Meeting

"Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage.  The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material."  ~Henry Ford

Conventional wisdom suggests that businesses hold far too many meetings attendees deem a waste of their time. Among the most common complaints are how certain individuals hold the floor too long, that the information being disseminated is worthless, and more often than not, the meeting is held merely to satisfy egos or fulfill political requirements.To combat this, some call for meetings with rigid agendas. They want to know in advance exactly what they’ll get in exchange for their time, and so they assume that having a control in place will prevent the meeting from wandering off-track. That sounds like a pretty good idea.Or does it?Suppose for a second that there is more than one reason for a bad meeting. Certainly poor planning is an easy culprit, but perhaps the bigger issue is that we assume etched-in-stone agendas lead to better results. We assume we know what we need ahead of time, we also assume that we know what the attendees need ahead of time. What is more likely is that we know what we need to discuss, which is different than an agenda.An agenda is your personal, politicized reason for gathering people, while the discussion of a stated topic is a conversation. In fact, the entire reason we are calling the meeting is to have a conversation.Why then, if we feel it is inappropriate - rude, even - to dominate the conversation in every other aspect of our lives, would we codify dominating the conversation in a meeting?Perhaps the reason meetings go off track is that the agenda doesn’t actually address topics of concern to the attendees. People come to your meeting and - becoming bored or frustrated with the content or the direction the meeting takes, or feeling their input is not valued or that they can’t be fully engaged - they switch topics to something that interests them or initiate side conversations. Since there is no established mechanism for discussion in the meeting, a power struggle ensues between the person who called the meeting and the people in attendance. This is not good.If we want to learn from our meetings, we need to allow the conversation to be set by the very professionals we invited to the meeting in the first place. If they were worth inviting, they must be worth including. If they aren’t, your meeting should serve another purpose: to hand out pink slips.Allowing the group to have a say in setting the agenda gives them buy-in for the importance of the topics. This helps prevent people running on at the mouth or providing information that goes off topic. Everyone has a stake in an efficient meeting because they all have discussion topics in the backlog. Group ownership means the person who called the meeting no longer serves as the traffic cop directing the conversation.Instead, as the person who called the meeting, you can now direct the overall topic and even seed a few of the initial sticky notes. Yyou can even set a few “must discuss” stickies at the top of the board and prioritize them the highest. But the group must be able to discuss what their professional direction drives them towards.The steps for doing this are simple:

1. Framework: Draw a Personal Kanban

2. Personal Agendas: Invite all attendees to write their topics on sticky notes

3. Democratization: Invite all attendees to vote on the topics on the table (each person gets two votes)

4. Group Agenda: Prioritize the sticky notes

5. Discuss

And voila! We have brought democracy to meetings. No longer do we tolerate meeting despots and spontaneous rebellions through filibuster or hijacking. Before these were power plays between the meeting organizer and the person acting now. Now they are interruptions of the group. Let society sort it out.After the meeting, you can construct your meeting minutes outline by simply gathering up the topics in the order discussed.(Want more on Lean meetings? Tune in tomorrow for a discussion of flexibility and democratization.)

Personal Kanban Interview on Agile Scout

Agile Scout's Peter Saddington interviews Jim Benson about Personal Kanban and the release of the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.ASL005 - LIVE with Jim Benson Personal Kanban from Agile Scout on Vimeo.

How I Cook

Mixed Wine and Sour Cherry Reduction

I frustrate people when I give cooking classes. They want measures. They want me to tell them what to do. Cooking isn’t like that. Cooking is about flavor, it’s about texture, it’s about the experience. It’s not about tablespoons or grams or whether something is prepared at exactly 375 for 20 minutes.So when your grandmother gives you her coveted, top-secret recipe for baked boiled squirrel al fresco, it will never taste the same as hers… if you follow the recipe. Because your grandmother doesn’t use the recipe, either.Whether it is soy sauce or olive oil or even something as universal as sea salt, a tablespoon from one producer will be very different from another.Just consider the variation among beef:

• USDA select (3rd grade) corn-fed beef from a grocery store that has likely been plumped with water;

• aged, organic, Choice steak (2nd grade) from a natural food market like Whole Foods or Choices;

• a Prime steak (1st grade) from a quality butcher; and

• a super-select Wagyu steak.

Bone-In Pork Chops with Mixed Wine Sour Cherry Reductions and Asian Pear

Bison Burgers with Maytag Blue Cheese and Grilled Naan

All will have flavor profiles and textures that vary wildly. The worst cut of Wagyu will be light years better than even the best cut of choice. So why would you ever expect food to taste the same from mere measurements?Just recently, I picked up a great looking piece of meat at Whole Foods. I decided I wanted to make pot roast in our slow cooker, which I’ve not used in years. I dug it out of storage, cleaned it up, and went to work on the pot roast.My wife Vivian asked what recipe I’d be using. I looked at her perplexed. What recipe? I simply couldn’t fathom using a recipe. I wanted pot roast. Granted, I’ve never actually prepared a pot roast. But that was besides the point.Later that evening we had pot roast, and it was quite good. Did I use a recipe?No.I used 12 recipes.The miracle of the Internet means that I don’t have to consult a book and choose one person’s vision of a particular type of food. I can now get 5, 10, even 100 versions of the same dish and see what is the same, what differs, what makes some unique. I learn about what Pot Roast is…not what one person says it is. Then I can begin to cook. I know what types of ingredients I need, what ingredients I have on hand, and what the flavor is I’m shooting for.Recipes end up being like “best practices.” In business, when a company encounters a problem, they often look for a set series of prescriptive, easily to follow steps that have solved that same problem elsewhere. The clincher here is that most problems are unique.Like ingredients, people are all different. We interact differently, we deal with change differently. Best practices are often followed as rote guides, and then fail.Why?Because we followed the recipe, but we didn’t actually cook.We follow what other people say will work, but we don’t find out what the gestalt is of what it is that we are making. We focus on instructions and not on actual goals.To truly solve problems, we need to be creative. We need to understand the various whys of a problem and then devise solutions. Otherwise we are merely treating symptoms.Remember, when working with visual controls like Personal Kanban or management processes your goals and the system you have employed to realize them are what’s important. The idea is not to become a slave to your board.  Whether it is building software, finishing a report at work, teaching your daughter the alphabet, or creating a perfect pot roast - other people can offer advice, but you are the chef.