Habits first and then progress follows! There is a huge power in the little things.
It's never that single workout that you missed or that one night you ate mindlessly. That doesn't hurt your progress, stop beating yourself up for it!
In reality, it's the fifty other things, hundred other choices you don't even think about that could be stopping your progress. It is the tiny things that really add up.
There is huge power to these tiny, little and minuscule things. These habits comes in various sizes and forms.
- Walking up the stairs every time, every single time ; instead of the elevator.
- Choosing water instead of sugar loaded beverages more often than not.
- Getting a good nights sleep, instead of working through the night.
- Taking a walk instead of lounging on the couch or reduce your screen time by 30 mins/day.
- Eating real, home cooked food instead of ordering outside more often than not.
- Deliberately choosing to hit the reset button every time you think you're off track, instead of going down that path.
Never disband these little habits. They all add up, not just once. They become the force multipliers in your life long fitness pursuit. They lead to much better decision making.
See if you can add 1 thing to your life and do it consistently for a month. Then extend it for another 2 months. Habits first, the progress will follow !
Same with "Scrum" ! You need to change the habits first, work on those behaviour changes, not just for 1 or 2 Sprints, but consistently. It could be :
- Starting your Daily Scrum clearly stating your Sprint Goal and inspecting the progress towards it.
- Limiting the work in progress to just 1 or 2 Sprint Backlog items at a time.
- Making transparent the remaining work in the Sprint Backlog and obstacles that's impeding the Scrum Team.
- Defining just 1 real improvement action from the Sprint Retrospective, tracking and implementing it in the following Sprint.
- Committing to a synergistic Sprint Goal as one unified team and not scope.
- Focusing on the flow of work ( to done), instead of velocity and story points.Identify the bottlenecks,waiting time and the blocks that extends the cycle time of a Sprint Backlog Item.
- Working through the dysfunctions, one at a time towards delivering done, usable Increments.
One thing, one month...you're slowly on your way to a habit.
It can take weeks, months and years. Do it ! Do it consistently ! Don't fall back on your old habits, customs and norms.
Until next time, sweat it out, rinse, recover and repeat !
#MakeFitnessAHabit #ScrumOn
Inspiration and References
- Co-founder and Coach, Arvind Ashok ,@thequad.in,The Quad Fitness Pvt. Limited, Madras, India