Back to the future Scrum Master-style

As announced in a previous newsletter, my wife and I would hold a yearly reflection moment together. Last week, Saturday, was the moment of truth. I'll share with you what we did and got out of it.

Time travelling

First, we recollected all our highs and lows of 2023. My wife was browsing the photo gallery on her phone, reliving many joyful moments of the year gone by. From a different angle, I inspected our calendars to see what we had been up to throughout the year. There was some overlap, but both of us dug up some events that the other had forgotten about. There was a lot to remember and be grateful for!

We wrote all these memories on sticky notes and stuck them on a timeline of painter's tape across our kitchen cabinets. The positive moments ended up above the line, the negative ones below. The happy moments were mainly related to spending quality time together and with our kids (and the occasional book launch, hahaha), and most of the unhappy moments were related to health issues for ourselves or people close to us. Altogether, it was an excellent visualization of our priorities in the past year.

Roleplay

Everyone plays multiple roles in their lives, depending on the context. So, it's helpful to check in on your roles regularly to see how you are doing and how you are dividing your limited time and energy. And so did we.

My wife and I individually listed our roles and rated ourselves per role on a 1-10 scale. She triggered me to be more detailed than just the generic "family member" role, so I split that into more specific roles like son, brother, son-in-law, etc. I discovered it was helpful because now I was paying more attention to these different roles and how I fulfilled them. That alone proved already valuable to me.

We shared and elaborated on our role assessments. For the husband/wife roles, we could check in with each other, and luckily, we both agreed on our respective ratings. We could provide each other with a complementary perspective for many of the other roles because, as a couple, we observe each other in these roles. Reviewing our roles together deepened our mutual understanding and appreciation.

Planning like a gardener

The last exercise was about planning for the new year: what to keep and continue, what to quit, and what to start. I decided to use the Ecocycle Planning format for that exercise. The main idea here is that everything follows a natural lifecycle, from gestation through birth to maturity. Something can get stuck in the Scarcity Trap when we don't invest enough. When we cling to something for too long that doesn't add value anymore, it ends up in the Rigidity Trap. And so, to create space and allow for renewal, creative destruction is needed.

In our exercise, we plotted our goals for 2024 on the relevant phases:

• gestation: still an idea, potentially worthwhile
• birth: recently started, still vulnerable
• maturity: mature, strong, valuable
• creative destruction: obsolete, no longer valuable

It was interesting to see that we both want to focus more on our physical and mental health. Social media and watching television ended up in the Rigidity Trap, while reading books was in the Scarcity Trap. So we know what to do and how we can support each other!

Ready for 2024!

And so, we looked back to 2023 and planned for the coming new year. Designing and facilitating this session for my wife and myself was fun. But most of all, I enjoyed our open conversation and constructive discussion of our plans for the new year.

Have you done something similar? Another approach or format? Feel free to share in the comments. I'd love to learn from your experience!

Take care and till next time!

Kind regards,

Herman / Scrumpy Dad

I help people find their purpose and stay loyal to their goals and values to create more happiness in their lives.

You can check out the Scrumpy Dad website for more information. Or get started immediately and get your copy of A Scrum Master's Guide to Happiness .