TL;DR – We remodeled our kitchen, and I used Kanban and Agile Project Management to complete it in two months flat and very little stress. Ask me how!
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The biggest challenge in life is getting things done. Whether it’s personal, professional, or somewhere in between, Getting Things Done (GTD) has always been a contemptuous battle between the do’er I know that lives inside me against the small yet mighty procrastinator that also shares brain space.
It all started with a sentence that was uttered when we were viewing what was soon to be our house nearly 11 years ago. “We can totally redo the kitchen in this place…”
The kitchen was old and dated in 2014 when we moved in, and it had a branded tag proudly displaying the name [Scheirich Kitchens], like a badge of honor. I believe it was two weeks after we moved in that the cabinets to the right of the sink, located in some countertop peninsula that only a custom kitchen could provide, attempted to remove themselves from the wall causing much stress and ultimately a neighborly assist that bought me another 10 years…
My wife, shown further below, reminded me a few months ago that she was patiently waiting for a new kitchen, and she made sure to let me know that the kitchen was ‘dying’ and ‘rejecting itself’. Sure… I present to you exhibit A:
This door is one example of the slow decline experienced by our kitchen since move-in. There was a ‘spice shelf’ that was an open air wall cabinet that had rejected the door over 5 years ago. In my defense, I did attempt to design a kitchen remodel using Agile back in 2019. For whatever reason it stalled… and that brings us to early 2024.
We were able to reuse 90% of the cards from my previous attempt
My lilfelong friend Chris Grosek signed on to be the GC and Kitchen Cabinet Professional, and I assumed the role of Project Manager and Construction Assistant. We had Kitchen Views take measurements and provide us with a quote, and we ultimately approved some quotes. Everything was set. The moon and stars aligned and delivery lined up with demo, lined up with a family vacation, and we had the green light for the last Friday before 4th of July weekend to begin demo.
This has been a lot of story time, but not a lot of Agile. Given that I’m the founder of The Agile Bros, I’d like to tie things back together on how we used Agile to accelerate the process and deliver maximum value to the client i.e. my wife and child. 8-year olds are demanding and have very little patience (especially if they’re hangry) and are excellent representations of the customers we all face in our daily lives, and thus my beatiful built-in customers were selected.
First thing’s first: There were many things that we didn’t know. Would the walls be damaged behind the old cabinets? When exactly would we need the plumber? We didn’t need to buy the appliances right away, but when? We had to make design choices and get things done prior to having a complete backlog of work. No timeboxes, incomplete backlog… Scrum was out. What could we use to track our work, watch for too much stuff going on at once (WIP), and keep overall track that our project was moving towards DONE? Kanban was the answer and the Kitchen 2.0 Kanban board was born.
Kitchen 2.0 Kanban
Next up, or second thing (for those grammarians keeping track), we needed a way to keep in contact with each other on a daily basis, share photos and videos for feedback and questions, but be asynchronous. We could use Google Duo, but that’s high bandwidth and not the best for asynchronous communication, plus I’m an Android and he’s an iPhone. Given all the cross-platform incompatibilities Marco Polo was chosen based on a few factors:
- Low bandwidth consumption
- Cross platform support
- Familiarity with the app
- Ease of use
June 28th marked the beginning of demo day. We completed demo in under 48 hours. I’m unsure if it was just fun destroying the old kitchen, or if we transformed into beast mode as a group, but we got it done in record time.
There was flooring under the flooring under the flooring…
The beauty of Kanban is that you can adapt it to your style of working. Because it’s loose outside of the concept of visualizing the work and limiting your WIP, It can be adapted to support the trades: Contractor, Electrician, Plumber, etc. because a card is a card, the work is the work. The great outcome that I expected, but didn’t bank on, was that I didn’t need to keep a tight schedule for most service related things. We could keep demoing, installing, and working around most service work and if the plumber wasn’t available, we did cabinets. If the electrician couldn’t come, we got plumbing scheduled. Kanban, for those that don’t know, is a direct translation from Japanese that means “Visual Card”. Can’t paint yet? Have A&A Living Solutions come do the backsplash. What better way to ensure your work is tracked, and visualized so that you can see things heading your way, or issues that might pop up in relation to a card that is on the board. Kanban is also not prescriptive in terms of meetings, or review, more a constant awareness of your tasks in a ‘we’re all adults here’ context.
The interesting thing about this project is that we attempted to utilize one Scrum elements within our project: The organization of Sprints.We started Sprint #1 and quickly crashed other cards into our sprint, also moving things from other sprints into To Do. We quickly removed the Sprint labels and all was right with the world for us to continue to conquer and move cards to DONE.
And so it went… card by card TO DO to DOING to DONE, it was like a drug. Being compelled to complete the tasks.
Final thoughts: Kitchen remodels are healthy for a marriage, ask my wife! I leave you with this idea: If we can complete a kitchen remodel, with little stress, what else can this framework be applied to? Another home project? Sure! What about better alignment with your technical projects? Need better alignment with your tasks as part of your Sales or Accounting teams? Kanban can help, and if not Kanban, Scrum, and if not Scrum, Lean, and if not Lean, Agile customized to suit your actual needs. Contact Us and let’s talk about how we can help!
Enjoy this slideshow of our journey through Agile Kitchen Remodeling. Please make sure to contact us should you have any questions or want to know how Agile Project Management and Agile Operations can enhance your getting the most value out of everything the fastest!