The benefits of Kanban are very clear and have been proven on organizations of diverse kinds and all sizes, and so are the benefits of Personal Kanban. Personal Kanban has resonated so well that people of all ages benefit from it, and this includes kids.
The benefits of gamification, when done properly (and not abused to become more of a Skinner-style conditioning practice, which doesn't work on the long run) are also being proven.
A Chilean couple, Luis and Natalia, came up with an awesome and very clever idea that combines Kanban and gamification to help improve their daughter Micaela's behavior. Micaela is a 3-year old fantastic girl with a great personality and very active. She also has a tendency to get distracted and to let her behavior be influenced by peers. Her parents haven trying different approaches to help her out. What finally worked for them was a very clever combination of Personal Kanban and Gamification. Let's call it Gamikanation.
The fotos show how this works. Luis and Natalia used a combination of Kanban and gamification. To make it easy on Micaela, the board has implicit wip and being a personal Kanban some tasks are in progress throughout the day such as wearing her shoes and behaving well; and some are immediate action such as eating her food and brushing her teeth. The gamification aspect is using pink hearts (for a boy they could be cars or sports balls or other that agrees with the kid’s interests) and using icons instead of words (which works better independently of whether the person is already able to read or not).
Positive results were immediate and significantly better than anything they have tried in the past. Even the school staff noticed Micaela’s change and amazed asked Luis and Natalia what they did.
For those interested on some guidance the book Agile Kids by Shirly Ronen-Harel and Danny Kovatch, translated into Spanish by our own Angel Agueda, is a great help.
"Alex está muy emocionado con esto, todos los días está pendiente de actualizar su Kanban, apenas termina una actividad se ocupa de cambiarla a terminada. Me sorprende que ha mejorado su actitud y se esfuerza en terminar y hacer aquellas cosas que hasta el sábado no hací,a más que nada por no tener la disposición o motivación suficiente para ello.
La familia y el colegio ha notado estos cambios positivos y motivación por participar y terminar aquellas cosas que antes no hacía por iniciativa propia.
Muchas gracias por todos los conocimientos y aportes que nos has entregado, sin duda para mí en términos personales y profesionales Lean Agile ha sido un crecimiento muy positivo y beneficioso."
