Getting Buy-In from your partner can be the most difficult kind of buy-in, but it is of course one of the most important kinds. If they don’t or won’t buy-in, you will fail at Agile practices in your home.
Why is it so hard to get them to buy-in?
Well, I think it largely falls on the fact that they are well-practiced in waterfall home management techniques. They likely grew up with parents who set rules and those rules were followed by children. They may not have had input into systems their families used for organization. They may even be just familiar with a certain way things are organized and thus do it out of habit. This means that it could be hard to change.
That’s okay.
The way to get them to buy-in if this is the case is to set a trial period.
I suggest 2 months. This gives you enough time to run through 4 sprints [because let’s be honest your first sprint isn’t likely to be your best iteration of Agile practices].
During these 2 months, you have to be sure to do your very best to live by the Agile Principles AND you have to be able to accept feedback.
What are some main pitfalls to avoid during this trial?
Please I beg of you not to try new software for running your home management during this phase. Asking your partner to buy-in to a new way of running your home management and a new software will likely turn into neither objective working. You may use software you are already using differently. For instance, if you are meal planning in Trello you may decide to do it weekly instead of for 2 weeks or you may choose to do it in broad strokes like by theme days.
Do not take on more projects than you can realistically complete. I like to under commit during my trial period. Now, I’m not saying you just put 1 thing on your list and complete it on day 1, but I am saying don’t put an entire remodel on your sprint and then fall flat.
Our first sprint included:
Solution for car keys always being hard to find
Meal Planning & Preparation
Our solutions:
Magnets next to the exit to the garage for key storage
I would plan and prep. Husband would cook.
These were easily implemented and tested out for 2 weeks. In that two weeks, we were able to install the magnets, use them, and assess them for feedback. We were also able to test out the new meal plan, prep, and cook plan.
You’ll have heard that our actual first iteration of the cooking solution was that my husband would do it all. That received almost immediate feedback of not working for me. This second solution went over better and was actually part of the first official sprint.
This was a lot for us at the time, but it was manageable. We then collected our thoughts and came back together for our retrospective where we gave and received feedback that we were able to take into the new sprint.
This will help you get buy-in from your partner. The receiving of the feedback is especially important. It can be the hardest part, but it is the most important.
You’ve got this!
What would you want to solve with your first sprint?
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