Games Have Actions and Symbols of Completion
The developing brain hungers for knowledge and understanding. The world is filled with bewildering systems that include contexts, value judgments, responsibilities, and outcomes. Systems are fascinating to kids and their developing brains.
Building blocks, board games, and video games are systems that often require a lot of work to master. All of them have outcomes that are cumulative, lots of little achievements that ultimately lead to the big gain. They are systematic; the achievements logically combine to affect a goal. As you work through a systematic game, gathering your achievements, you find there is a flow.
Games that have a flow are fun.
Games – even video games – are also generally tactile. There are specific body movements to make, controllers to hold, buttons to press. This kinesthetic feedback reinforces the conceptual exercise of goal attainment. The kanban has this same kinesthetic feedback. You move a tag to “done,” you feel the achievement.
Games Have a Flow
Games are also rewards based. If you do something in a game and get nothing from it in return, you tend not to do it again or, wind up hating that part of the game simply because it is wasting your time. While tangible rewards are up to parents, the marker that you’ve reached a point of achievement is highly desirable for children. If they move five tasks to “done” and will get allowance / TV time / a rocket sled in return, they will do whatever it takes to move those tickets to “done.” Remember, moving tasks 1,2,3 and 4 have a tangible kinesthetic reward because you can actually see your progress.
It therefore came as little surprise to me when I started getting reports that people were using kanban with children.
Patty Jennings Beidleman is using it for her daughter’s confirmation coursework:
Confirmban
David Anderson has told me how at his daughter’s school they use a kanban to decide who can use what play equipment at what time. There are finite resources and each kid has a card. They can use a card to show which piece of equipment they will use. This limits the WIP of each of the individual toys, and ensures those kids who are playing get the best experience possible.
Others have set up kanbans for tracking chores. I set up “fridgeban” below as an example of how you might do this with … um … traditional infrastructure. Chores start on the front of the fridge and are moved to the side when complete. Rock simple, very effective.
Kanban works with a kid’s brain. Cause and effect of chores and rewards is clearly laid out. Imagine never having to ask again “did you do your chores?” You may still have to quality check the work, but you won’t have to nag them to action. The kanban will do the nagging for you. And, oddly enough, it’s fun!
Posts about Kidzban
One Kid’z Kanban – how one mom structured her daughter’s kanban and lessons learned.
Pingback: Ready, Set, Go: Kidzban Kanban Makes Chores Clear and Fun! | Personal Kanban
From a productivity standpoint, it was very successful although my 13 year-old didn’t like it. I suspect it is because she was unable to say “I don’t know what to do next” or “I have done all MY jobs”.
There were some things that only my wife had to do. Some of those didn’t get finished on Saturday.
This is what we did.
1. As a family, we spent an hour going to each room in the house. Everyone was encouraged to say what needed to be done in the room.
2. My wife made sticky notes for each job. (After the 3rd room, the 13 year-old wised up and stopped saying as much because she realized the stack of to-do’s was getting bigger.)
3. When we finished, my wife put all the sticky notes on the backlog. I told her to pick 20 items to get done today. This surprised her but relieved some of the anxiety with the kids. We negotiated and she picked 28 items which were moved to the “ready” position. The addition of 8 more items made the kids mad.
4. Each person was allowed to move one item from “ready” to “doing”.
5. When the task was competed, it was moved from “doing” to “done”.
6. Step 4 was to be repeated until all items were completed.
Retrospective:
My wife overestimated the throughput…surprise!
The kids were (understandably) upset at the addition of the 8 items.
Although we discussed expectations during step 1, some of the sticky notes didn’t have enough detail.
Prioritization didn’t work well which resulted in slack time.
Kelly’s back pain was limiting her work which was an impediment. She also picked issues that enabled her to sit down which caused friction in the team.
John,
The movement of tickets and a definable end point is pretty important for everyone, including kids.
Also, I might recommend having fun things on the kanban too. Otherwise it’s a drudgeban!
Jim
Jim,
I agree with the fun things.
Instead of CleanBan, this was really a “house cleaning sprint” (in scrum terms).
The cool thing is that I put the money that I would have spent on a maid in an envelope labeled “fun”. The team (the kids and wife) can chose to spend it on things, disburse it, or save it (without my interference).
I am enjoying your book!