Agile Homeschooling

Adapting homeschool

When our oldest three boys moved from elementary to middle school, my wife and I knew they needed more agency and responsibility in managing their school work. But we weren’t sure how to navigate the transition.

We would give them more freedom, and they would procrastinate or not fully complete the work. They wanted more autonomy but didn’t yet have the maturity to handle it. They needed help. They needed freedom and flexibility combined with focus.

I had recently given a presentation on Scrum where I stated, “Scrum treats you like an adult.” 

A light bulb went off. 

And I nerded out and created a family Scrum team. 

• I took the role of Scrum Master and would teach the family to practice Scrum.
• My wife became the Product Owner focusing on what learning value needed to be delivered each sprint/week. 
• Our kids made up the Dev Team.

I wanted to keep the process visually simple and accessible to everyone, so I created a board in Miro with a primary backlog, a weekly backlog, and columns for active, needs grading, needs correction and done. 

I gave each child a swim lane on the board to help them focus. This setup is not typical for Scrum, but we're talking about 11-year-old boys here.

What I learned from applying Scrum to schooling.

As we now are making the transition to high school, we are no longer using Scrum for the boy's schooling. Not because it didn’t work, but because it worked great. 

They are now owning to the process of prioritizing and completing their work. They each have their own system they’ve tweaked based on the board we started with. 

As I reflect on this Scrum schooling experiment, here are some observations and takeaways

• We played roles according to our giftings.
• The definition of done still matters.
• Scrum faces the same challenges with kids as it does with adults. 
• The scum values were adopted. 
• Scrum can be applied less formally. 

We played roles according to our gifting.

My wife and I are both pretty involved in charting the course for our kids' education. But we bring different perspectives and strengths, and thus we play different roles.

My wife has a greater attention to detail and a more sequential approach to getting things done. She is way more patient to sit and work through learning handwriting than I would be. These strengths better equipped her for the broad yet methodical instruction of our kids' elementary years. 

I naturally bend toward a more global view and a non-linear approach. As our kids moved into middle and high school, their education involved combining disciplines and exploring possible vocational options. This is more my jam.

The grammar, tone and narrative structure of communication combined with the math of analytics and the art of design all come together into disciplines like UX or marketing. These also happen to be subjects I experience and share an interest with my kids.  

So I have taken more of the lead in helping them explore new subjects and careers by applying their giftings and interests.

The definition of done still matters. 

Just like with a team of adults, not everyone means the same thing when they say something is “done.” The first few weeks involved a lot of clarifying what was required for something to go into the done column.

Some examples included: 

• Show ALL your math work. 
• Spell check your paper. 
• Make corrections after grading. 
• Put your books away. 

These each seem simple and basic, which is why they are essential to cultivating maturity in how our kids approach work and life. Any team practicing Scrum needs a clear definition of done.

Scrum faces the same challenges with kids as it does with adults.

Simultaneously facilitating Scrum with children at home and adults at work was a fascinating study in human behavior. 

I was surprised how often I would address the same issues with both groups, even in a given week. These issues manifested differently but mostly revolved around living out the Scrum values. More on that in a minute.

I’ve often thought if my kids can learn kindness, delayed gratification and responsibility, they’ll do pretty in life. Interestingly Scrum assumes these qualities, which will be clearly visible when they aren’t present, and growth will be necessary.

If you haven’t learned agency and ownership already, Scrum will be challenging but present you with an opportunity to grow more than you thought possible. 

The scum values were adopted. 

Scrum is based on living out a set of 5 values. 

1. Commit to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team.
2. Courage to do the right thing and work on challenging problems.
3. Focus on the Sprint's work and the Scrum Team's goals.
4. Open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work.
5. Respect each other to be capable, independent people.

In the beginning, commitment and focus were driving factors to us experimenting with Scrum. We wanted to cultivate these values more in our kids as they took greater ownership of their learning experience. 

Then courage and openness quickly came to the forefront. 

The first day we looked at the board, the kids were a little overwhelmed with how much they needed to get done, and there was a temptation to do all the easy things first. We addressed this during retrospectives for the first few weeks, and eventually, they grew the courage to take on the challenging tasks first. 

Early on, they were more prone to moving tasks along the board toward done even if they weren’t. As time went on, they learned the value of openness. If they said they needed help when encountering a problem, they benefited from us being able to help immediately. 

My wife and I had to grow in respect for our kids to be able to complete what they committed to. Taking this posture was hard when we could see they weren’t doing enough to finish by the end of the week. Allowing them to fail allowed them to grow. 

These values are essential to maturity and part of why I often say, “Scrum treats you like an adult.” 

Scrum can be applied less formally.

Our application of Scrum was undoubtedly less technical than what I was leading at work, but it was still effective. This experience is an instructive example of how Scrum can be applied to many types of work. If you're considering using Scrum in a field outside software development, check out my What is Scrum? Guide. I developed it to help people apply scrum to everyday life. 

What’s next

We’re no longer using scrum for our kids' education, but I continue experimenting with it in everyday life, such as writing or home DIY projects. 

If you’re applying scrum in a non-conventional setting, I’d love to hear about it. You can find me on LinkedIn. Reach out and let me know your experience.

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To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum.

Still not sure about your next step with Scrum? I offer a couple of free coaching sessions each month. You can signup for a free 30-minute coaching session, and we can work together to identify a good next step for you.