About
In the fall of 2007, Peace & Joe knew they had a problem. They had four kids in school, each with active schedules and aggressive homework goals. Balls were getting dropped. Kids would remember on the way to school that there was homework due that day. Quizzes were taken without study because the kids forgot there was a quiz, and parents forgot to remind kids there was a quiz. The kid-managed litterbox would go for days without being cleaned. More and more, Peace & Joe become the reminders. They were the enforcers who made sure kids remembered to do homework and study. And they were forgetting too.
Something had to change. Their model just wasn’t scaling. As schedules got more and more full, they simply couldn’t remember all the reminders they had to deliver. Woe fell upon the land.
Joe, being a software geek who tries to solve everything with technology, suggests to Peace that they implement a project management methodology called Scrum. It works in the office, enabling teams to manage complex projects, maybe it will work in the home. By getting all these details out of their heads and onto a wall, maybe they would be better able to see what they had to do and restore some ownership back to the real parties responsible for completing tasks, the kids.
Peace, eager for any port in the storm, agreed to a small-scale implementation to see if there was any value at all in this new way of laying out their work.
Three years later, Scrum For Kids is going strong and they can’t imagine life without it. Their kids take ownership for the work that is expected of them (really!) and manage to get it done with minimal reminders from parents. The kids embrace the process and value how it helps them organize all the moving pieces of their week.
This blog is a description of the process and a chronicle of their journey. There is real power here for any parent at the end of their rope. This is how they restored order, and then some, to their hectic household.
pb&J Group
- joe[at]pbjgroup.net
- peace[at]pbjgroup.net
#1 by Laurel on September 23, 2010 - 6:35 pm
Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I’ve heard about “the board” and must say that my 10 year old went straight to your website once I told her you’d posted all the details. She’s excited to implement too!! I feel like you’ve just given us the keys to the castle.
It also feels better to know that you too were once at the end of your rope and that this was the catalyst for Scrumforkids! Thanks for all the info and for all of your time – can’t wait to put our board together! 🙂