Early feedback works also in personal life
On Saturday’s it is always busy in our household. Sleeping in late, kids to football and Musical practice. And with that Musical practice comes my example from getting early feedback and the importance of that.
My daughter of 12 has to take her time to get ready for Musical practice, she needs that time to get her mind-set. On this Saturday I told her an hour before having to leave to get prepared for Musical class. She went upstairs and I continued my business as usual.
Checking in a half hour later I found her still in Pyjama’s being very busy with all other stuff except getting ready for Musical lesson. She was busy cleaning her whiteboard, where we exchange little notes and drawings ;-)(different Agile approach i'll explain maby later). Very good work but of no value to the Getting ready for Musical lessons. I told her that she really should get dressed and explained that was the most valuable thing at this time and left the room.
After 15 minutes, we now only have 15 minutes left to get in the car, I hear my daughter asking where her sweatpants are. She needs those for dance lessons and her favourites are in the laundry. She now has to pick a less favourite one. Now my daughter is upset because the plan that was in her head has now to be adjusted and there is no time left to adopt it because we need to leave.
In the car she is a bit sad that she now has to wear her less favourite pants. During the drive we now need to adjust the mind-set so she can get over it and go happy to the Musical lesson. Had she gone dressing earlier we would have found out earlier that her pants were in the laundry (early Feedback). That fact wouldn’t have changed but she would have had a lot more time to come up with a possible solution or at least have more time to process the disappointment.
This I explained in the car on our way to the Musical lessons. The result was that my daughter now better understood why I asked her to start earlier and it helped to change her feeling towards the disappointment.
When I asked her after the Musical lessons if the pants he was wearing were really that bad she said No but she needed time to adjust to the changed situation. So it wasn’t actually about the sweatpants but more the time to adjust to the situation and not having time left to come up with a solution. That is what happens in Scrum teams who deliver too late.
So early feedback is not only good for adjusting the outcome based on changing needs but is also good to help you accept the changing situation.
Her musical lesson was great and she had a lot of fun. Happy next Saturday