2020 New Years Resolution

For 2020 my New Year's Resolution is to not make any more New Year's Resolutions. Now I know that may sound contradictory at first but humor me for a moment. We all know how these resolution sagas usually end, dead and forgotten by February 1st, and if you're really dedicated to your resolution you'll hold on 'till February 15th. Because of the complex and adaptive nature of life it's not practical to make a fixed resolution (usually just in your head or written in a journal and stashed away until your next entry or the following year).

Transparency: It's been at least 7 years since I've made a new year's resolution. I began making a list of goals or accomplishments I wanted to achieve over the course of the year. My goals were organized into Household, Business, Financial, Personal, Physical Fitness, Relationship, & Spiritual. This took the resolutions out of my head and made them transparent to me, my wife, accountability partners, brain trust, and anyone else who reviewed the list.

Backlog, Planning: They ranged from having a specific dollar amount in my saving and investment accounts, to specific books I wanted to read, the purchase of our first home, taking our first cruise, specific vehicle purchases, to making a more concerted effort to communicating with my parents and siblings daily. This backlog of action items helped me plan my year and prioritize the most valuable goals for immediate action.

Artifacts, Inspection: I originally kept these goals in a 1/2" 3 ring binder along with photos of some of my aspirations, this later evolved to a journal with the printed lists and photos taped to the pages. It became my portable vision board & goal list. I would make it a point to take with me to school and work every day. I would read over it and look at the photos for at least 5-10 minutes a day. This artifact gave me something tangible to inspect if ever there was any confusion about what needed to be worked on next, what was in progress, or what had already been done.

Adaptation: After the first year the result was an increase in my productivity and the achievement of so many goals that I don't think I can quantify. When I accomplished goals, I would draw a line through them, as some goals became obsolete or changed, I would highlight them gray. As new goals came up, I would add them to the list under the appropriate category. As I mentioned earlier, we are constantly forced to adapt to the problems that life throws at us, as a result our resolutions and goals should also adapt to reflect that change.

Retrospective: At the end of the year I was able to have a visual representation of what I had accomplished. I was able to reflect and see where I started, and where I had ended the year. This retrospective look at the year allowed me to plan accordingly for the next year. Goals that had not yet been accomplished were carried over to the next year, goals that were no longer valuable to me were removed and replaced by new goals that aligned more with my life. New pages were added to the book, and I now had the ability to look back over the course of years and see the evolution of my life.

The transformation that was able to take place in my life as a result of this little book of goals was amazing. One thing I realized was that the more time I spent looking at my goal list the more it kept me focused and on task throughout the day, week, and month. During the times I was distracted I could tell that my productivity declined greatly. Despite my new-found productivity I still managed to find a way to multiply productivity by adding another artifact that could be inspected and adapted.

 I made the decision to become the "ScrumMaster of Life" as my friend, mentor and fellow Agile professional Bim Obayanju would say. I began by creating a Kanban board for my life, & the goals on my list. This afforded me the opportunity to break my larger goals into even smaller pieces that I could further monitor the progress on multiple times a day. This Kanban board went up on a wall in my bedroom and began to be filled with deliverable action items. Now if you aren't in the Agile community you may not be familiar with some of these terms like ScrumMaster, Agile, or Kanban mean, or you may not have caught some of the coded words I've hidden like Easter eggs through this text, so I'll provide some context for you.

Scrum is defined as "A framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value." (1) Originally used for software development, Scrum has begun to be used in many different sectors, and I'm sure many more will follow.

A Kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (or flow). Kanban boards use cards, columns, and continuous improvement to help technology and service teams commit to the right amount of work, and get it done! (2)

This Book of Goals & my Kanban board have helped increase my velocity, and the rate at which I've been able to accomplish my goals, and any additional projects I take on throughout the year. This isn't Scrum by the book per-say, and you'll be wearing the hats of a few different Scrum roles in your life. But I’ll walk you through the steps of how to create your Scrum board of life.

Materials needed: 1/2" painter’s tape, sticky notes, permanent marker

Optional Materials: ruler, level tool or something to make sure your angles are 90 degrees if you are OCDish like me.

 Step 1: Designate a wall in your home that you pass by often. I chose a bedroom wall and make it a point to study my Kanban board at least twice a day. Once in the morning when I wake up and before leaving home, then again in the evening usually before or after I get out of the shower while I am preparing to go to bed.

 Step 2: Once you’ve designated a wall, you'll take the roll of painter’s tape and make at least 4 columns on the wall, the 5th column is optional. I advise you take your time to make sure all the tape lines are evenly spaced out and that the lines are perfectly vertical. The 4 columns should be Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, In Progress, Done, and the optional Blocked column. Once you have your vertical columns of taped columns up on the wall you can add a header line of tape to the columns to enclose.

Step 3: Take the marker and sticky notes (which we will call cards) and begin writing goals, tasks, or things you want to accomplish on them. You should adhere to a few rules when doing this:

• Only 1 item per card
• The completion of these goals/tasks should be measurable, and transparent to the point that if someone else were to see them they could judge whether you had completed them or not.

Once you have completed filling out each card, you will place the card into the Product Backlog column. This backlog can be as large as you want it to be. Feel free to add as many cards to this as you want, even things you may not be able to accomplish within the year. Keep in mind this backlog is alive, it will grow and evolve over time so do not worry about whether it is too small or too big.

Step 4: Move the cards you would like to complete over the next 2-4 weeks into the Sprint Backlog column. This column is dedicated to the things you are committing to accomplish over the next Sprint. A sprint is a time-boxed period that you commit to complete this work within. For example you should not add the card that says "Graduate from college with PHD" into the Sprint Backlog column on the first day of your freshman year in college because you can't possibly complete 8+ years of college in 2-4 weeks…..unless you have an 89 DeLorean in your garage that Dr. Emmett L. Brown built for you.

Step 5: Move the cards you are currently working on into the In Progress column. This column should only be reserved for the cards you are ACTIVELY working on. You should also be careful not to over commit yourself, remember there is value in focusing your energy and attention on only the most important cards.

Step 6: If you have opted to create a Blocked column, move the cards that you were currently working but are no longer able to work on due to impediments beyond your control into the Blocked column. If you planned a road trip for this sprint but are unable to take the trip because your vehicle is in the shop, you would move this card from Sprint Backlog to the Blocked column. Once this card becomes unblocked you can move it back to In Progress. If you are forced to postpone the trip until next month you should move the card back to the Product Backlog column.

Step 7: Once you have accomplished the feat of completing one of these cards you will move it to the Done column! That is the whole purpose of this Kanban board, to move your cards from the left side to the right side.

Despite all this you still won't magically accomplish all your goals, but it will put them in your face every day and force you to determine if you will simply go through the year in a mediocre state of existence or if you'll make the daily steps to bend the world to your will. The choice is yours, red or blue pill?

If you are interested in learning more about how Scrum can transform your life or organization, how it can increase productivity, or becoming a Certified ScrumMaster drop me a line!

Victor Adetiba, CSM, CSPO, PSM, AWS CCP, PMP Candidate

[email protected] | 469.682.3334

(1) https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-scrum-master

(2) https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban/boards