There is a ‘ōlelo no‘eau (Hawaiian proverb) that reads “‘Ike aku, ‘ike mai. Kōkua aku, kōkua mai. Pēlā ka nohona ‘ohana.” This translates into “Watch, observe. Help others and accept help. That is the family way.” In a way the ancient Hawaiians had implemented a very modern project management system commonly known as “agile” into their everyday lives.
(In these stressful times, feel free to play the relaxing sounds of waves while you read today’s entry.)
Agile embraces change, even when it comes later in the development stage. There is a strong belief that improvement at any stage leads to a better product. Agile also encourages cooperation between interdisciplinary fields, observing the successes of certain projects and learning from the downfalls from others. The process produces efficiency and quality product. The core principles from the Agile Manifesto can be found at https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/12-principles-behind-the-agile-manifesto/.
The scope of my project includes three main goals. First, to create a portal that will encourage pro bono activity at Legal Aid Society of Hawaii (LASH). Second, to create a program that can help navigate users on the website get to their resources without leaving the homepage. Third, to help the in-take workers increase efficiency by digitizing all of their resources into one easily accessibly location.
Each of these goals cannot be met without meeting with the key players that they will effect. This means working with the staff and volunteers at LASH on a daily basis. I also meet with my amazing supervisor Sergio once a week to update him on my process and to bounce ideas back on how to improve my results.
These weekly meetings are called SCRUM, another popular framework of Agile in which fixed-length iterations called sprints are used to monitor progress. During SCRUM we evaluate what works, what does not, and how to improve from there. This step is crucial to producing a quality product.
I am sure you are asking yourself, “How does Chad do it all? There is so much going on.” Good question. I would be lost had it not been for “Kanban.” Kanban is a Japanese manufacturing system in which the supply of components is regulated through the use of an instruction card sent along the production line. An example of what Kanban might look like will be posted bellow. Of course this is not going to be my actual Kanban board as that would contain tons of confidential information that will remain as such.
I have been using Kanban, sometimes referred to as a task board, to organize my thoughts by reducing complex projects into a simple set of discrete steps. This allows me to track my progress and increases my moral by displaying incremental milestones. If you wanted to check out how you could use Kanban in your own daily life you can check out https://trello.com/ for some inspiration.
The one coconut hanging over my head at this point is the calendar. There is so much to do with so little time.
Now that you have reached the end of my entry, take a minute to close your eyes and continue listening to the sounds of the ocean wash over problems and take them out to sea.