Sprinting, Scrumming, & Writing

I worked for a big, three-initial company for twenty years as a writer, editor, and publications manager.  With 15 writers as direct reports and more competing demands on my time than I can remember, I lived by my calendar and became so proficient in juggling that I considered a career in the circus.

During that time, the company invested heavily in agile. Not gonna lie, I rather liked the methodology.

Seven years ago, I left the company and began writing novels. Or as I like to call it: living the dream. I assumed I would bring all that productivity and discipline with me. So the first thing I did was set up a weekly scrum meeting with the other two writers in my critique group. Accountability, right?

And it worked. . .Kinda. Sorta. Almost. We met every week to review what we'd accomplished the previous week and what we intended to accomplish in the upcoming week. And I had accomplishments to report. . .just not even close to the things I said I intended to do. The problem wasn't scrum day; it was the other six days in the week.

There were lots of reasons why, or so I told myself.

First, let me share with you that I've always been obsessive. Need an example? Among other things, I am an avid gardener. And if I buy 200 plants, I will stay in the garden from sunrise to sunset to make sure those plants are in the ground in a single day. Blisters? Back pain? Starvation? Destroying the $100 manicure? I laugh at them.

Need a writing example? I decided my website needed a Bookshop where I sold both eBooks and print editions. I'd been selling books at local markets. If I sold my paperback for the same price that Amazon sold it for, I made $10 per book. With Amazon, I made $3. You can see why I might want to sell from my website.

A full week of long hours delivered a Bookshop; but during that week, I didn't write, do social media, clean house, or exercise. And at night, I was so mentally exhausted, I fell in bed, tuned in to Netflix, and passed out before the opening credits finished scrolling.

There were plenty of logical reasons why it took so long. The website store builder app was glitchy. I didn't plan how I wanted the Bookshop to look or work. (I am a dyed-in-the-wool pantser.) And like former technical writers everywhere, I didn't read the instructions ahead of time, figuring I'd look things up when I ran into a problem.

But the main issue was I had it in my head that I needed the Bookshop RIGHT NOW! Disclosure: my website has operated for at least 10 years without a Bookshop. Would another week have made a difference?

Something needed to change.

I'd previously tried to balance my writing business and my real life. With little success. I decided that this was a job particularly suited for AI. So, I fed all the data into a chat. It included my goals for the year, a sample of my weekly scrum goals, and my work experience.

What did I learn from the back-and-forth chat? I already possessed the skills I needed. I just wasn't using them.

Observation 1: Without all that externally imposed structure, the guardrails were down. I happily gave myself permission to spend days obsessing over one project while everything else disappeared.

Observation 2: The backbone of the scrum system is the sprint, but I was working to milestones instead of inchpebbles. Categorizing the blog isn't an inchpebble. Categorizing five blog posts is.

Observation 3: If a new task arose, I was always tempted to start work immediately. In agile, a new task goes into the backlog unless not doing it would mean the end of the world as we know it.

Observation 4: Missed work doesn't become debt. If I schedule 90 minutes of writing for Tuesday and life intervenes, Wednesday does not become 180 minutes of writing. I simply do Wednesday's scheduled 90 minutes. I know from experience, once I get behind, the growing deficit makes it harder to begin again. And then, I just quit for the week.

Observation 5: Some things aren't sprints. They're routines that shouldn't sit around in the backlog pile. I wanted recurring, limited appointments for habits like exercise, reading, and cleaning. And before you ask, cleaning the house is a milestone, not an inchpebble.

For routines, it works for me to set a timer on Google Home. I start the timer and work on the task until the time goes off. For whatever reason, I don't feel guilty about stopping when I hear the buzzer. Turns out I don't need a timer to get me started. I need one to make me stop.

How does the new system work? Well, I have an overview of what I want to do for the week, and then I break the tasks into the inchpebbles by the day. Here's what my first week looked like, along with one day's inchpebbles. 

And the backlog? It looks like this

So, about that job in the circus? Turns out, even a good juggler needs to know when to put something down.