Using agile retrospectives to keep a family together against covid-19
Two weeks ago I decided to jump into a flight to Brazil and avoid being locked down in a small apartment until further notice. Despite my expectations, the first 10 days at my parents house in Brazil were not the easiest. But we made it.
As things started to smoothen, I thought it was about time we celebrated all the good things in our life, despite the pandemic. And I also wanted to have a conversation with my parents about how to cultivate the behaviors that kept us strong and united. It was time to have a retrospective on our last 10 days.
How to convince your parents to join a retro
Well, they didn't really know what we were about to do.
I know my parents. If I had given them a full blown explanation about what we were about to do, they'd say "that's non sense, we don't need it" or "that's too much work, I wanna go back to the sofa and watch a movie". What did I do instead?
First of all, I prepared everything to put them in a positive and receptive mood. I bought a nice piece of meat and asked my dad to prepare it on our (or "his") grill, set the table outside where the sun was shining, poured some beer to everyone, put some music on the stereo…
And so, after having a nice family meal, with everyone cheerful and having their bellies full, I told them I wanted to propose a game. I didn't say much else. I just pulled a sheet of paper (prepared in advance) split in 4 quadrants that said:
- Things that went well over the last week;
- Things that can we can do even better;
- New ideas we should put in practice in the upcoming week;
- Appreciation;
(Yes, it's an adaptation of Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, …, from Paulo Caroli, you got that right ;) )
Running the retro
Just as I thought, their initial reaction was a bit "meh" but I didn't listen to them. I distributed a few small pieces of paper, along with pens, told them "come on, all you need to do is write as many things as you want on each quadrant, it's only gonna take 5 minutes, and then we talk about them" and started the timer.
(It's true that my mom gave me a hand by saying I was putting in practice something I'd learnt in the course I'm doing. Nobody had to know it had nothing to do with that course.)
And voilà, they bought it! They started putting their ideas on paper and were even concerned they only had 5 minutes to do so.
The outcomes
My parents are friendly and extrovert, but they won't show too much appreciation to each other. And that's what I eventually wanted to achieve. I wanted them to say thanks to each other for everything we were doing for each other, and to feel recognized for their effort. That would make us even stronger to face the upcoming weeks of confinement. And it worked.
My parents were super happy with the discussions we had. We agreed on better splitting responsibilities, so that my mom wouldn't feel so overwhelmed with house duties and could take better care of herself. My dad put himself in charge of coming up with new games for us to play at home. Both of them enjoyed my idea of making pizzas next Friday night. And we agreed to run another retrospective next weekend, to talk about what can be improved.
Wanna do the same with your family?
Then what I recommend is:
- prepare in advance: it's harder to convince someone into doing something they don't know if it seems like you're improvising on the fly;
- invest in setting the mood: good food, a nice setting and good music always help cheering up people;
- run it first, ask later: instead of asking if they want to do it, just do it and afterwards talk about how it went and how did they like it; human beings are naturally averse to trying new things, especially under confinement conditions, be bold and just do it.
- put it in action: if you come to agreements and they're never put in practice, next time you try to do it, everyone is gonna say it's a waste of time, and they're right; ensure agreements get actioned, even if you have to annoy your parents a little bit, otherwise they'll get pissed at each other for not doing what they said they would do, and things will only get worse.
Finally, remember to be creative. There are multiple ways of making your family stronger during this period of uncertainty, pick the ones that suit you best.
