2024 Update: I don’t use JIRA nor SAFe for managing my work, I just track my work with a Kanban board and keep things simple.
Prior to getting my current position, I had never used any sort of task management software. My schedule was generally driven by school demands, whether it be through assignment deadlines or the times during the week that class ran. Task management was very fluid to the needs of whatever assignment or exam was next, so I never saw the benefit of using a structured tool to manage what I needed to do.
However, that all changed when my workplace shifted towards using an Agile process for tracking work. I at first resisted the idea, finding it to waste time and add bureaucratic bloat. While I still have my gripes about the challenges in implementing the methodology in a large-scale organization, in practice it works well for organizing thoughts and projects on a small-scale.
If you’re unfamiliar with Agile, the idea is that large projects can be broken up into tasks. These tasks can be assigned an effort score. The creators of SAFe, a large-scaled implementation of Agile, suggest scoring based on the amount of days you think the project will take to complete.
However, these effort scores can be defined how you wish; for personal projects I prefer to break down how long a task will take by the amount of hours rather than days.
Next comes the prioritization. Ideally you have a few different tasks to do. You focus on the ones that bring the highest value and have a strict deadline first. There are two common ways of organizing tasks:
Kanban
Kanban is a method of visualizing your work and putting tasks into various buckets. For the sake of simplicity, I have three buckets for my tasks: * To-Do * In Progress * Done
Each represents a task I need to do and where it stands currently. If you prefer a more detailed breakdown you can add in your own buckets like Blocked and Cancelled.
The goal of Kanban though is to limit the amount of work you have in progress at one time. If you’re juggling 10 different tasks after you document it in your Kanban board, that’s a sign that you need to prioritize certain tasks and delay other ones.
Scrum
Scrum is a more structured version of Kanban. It involves two-week “sprints” where you document the work you do, and evaluate your progress at the end of two weeks in a review session.
Traditionally, Scrum has specific roles that confirm when progress has been made on a project. These include a product owner and a scrum master. For personal task management though, these specific roles aren’t necessary as long as you can hold yourself accountable.
If you’re curious as to the differences between Scrum and Kanban, you can find more here.
How I Use Agile for Personal Projects
It took me a while to wrap my head around Agile practices at work and to see the benefit in having that structure, as it’s very dense due to its origins from optimizing software development. So do not feel bad if the words Scrum and Kanban sound more like Klingon than actual English words. After over a year of using Agile methodologies at work, here’s how I’ve used them in my personal life to my benefit:
1) Find an Agile Software and Create a Project/Board
Admittedly, I became used to JIRA because that is what my workplace uses for project management. But I know that early on I found myself very overwhelmed by JIRA and all the different options that it had. There are other tools such as Trello that may be easier for a beginner to start with. Hopefully the general advice below is still helpful for thinking about how to organize a personal project!
Whether you decide to go with JIRA, Trello, or another task management tool, be sure to create a project to store your tasks in. I named my project “Personal Goals”, but if you want to focus on something narrower that is also possible.
If you’re using JIRA, here you can also choose if you want to have a Kanban project or a Scrum project; I recommend experimenting to see which approach works better for you, but I found that Scrum projects better fit my needs. If you’re using Trello your boards will be Kanban boards.
2) Create a Backlog of Tasks
The next thing you need to know is what you need to do. Documenting all the different things you need to do can take up a good chunk of time, but by writing it down I don’t forget all the things I want to do a couple of weeks later.
3) Create User “Epics” to Organize Your Backlog of Tasks
Because my project is focused on Personal Goals, I am able to break down the things I want to learn and do into certain categories. For me, these include categories such as: * Game Development * Learning Python * Personal Development
If there are clear categories of things you need to do and a roadmap of skills you want to build, breaking down tasks into categories will be very helpful.
If you’re using Trello, it may be helpful to instead keep separate boards to organize your tasks with, as the option for traditional Epics doesn’t exist in the same way.
4) Organize Tasks Into Sprints (Scrum) or In a General To-Do Order (Kanban)
At first, I tried following the Kanban approach of continuously getting tasks done when I had time, but found the approach a bit overwhelming. I think I would have succeeded had I created an order to go after tasks in Kanban rather than just leave any and every task up for grabs, so I suggest doing that if you consider the Kanban board approach.
However, I eventually switched to a project on JIRA with a Scrum setup instead, where I could organize my work into two-week sprints. This helped a lot with the feelings of being swamped with things to do. Within these two-week sprints, you can assign a certain amount of points that you expect yourself to do. How many points you assign depends on how you quantify said points. For example, if 1 point equals a day’s worth of work, SAFe methodology says you shouldn’t assign more than 8 points of work to be done throughout the sprint.
Because I follow a different scoring system for personal projects, I try to give myself a set number of hours available for getting tasks done, and then put tasks into the sprint accordingly to fit those needs. When I have a moment where I want to get something done, I consult the Scrum board for that sprint and choose a task to complete.
5) Check In Regularly to Review Progress
If you’re using Scrum, you have a natural checkpoint to evaluate the work you have completed once a sprint is over. If you use Kanban, you’ll have to make a note to check in every now and again to evaluate how you’re progressing on your goals.
These checkpoints are great because they allow you to iterate on your process and confirm how much work you have completed. Before managing my tasks, I felt like I didn’t accomplish much most days. But by using software that showed my progress, it was easier to quantify and see what I had done. And with each sprint, it’s easier for me to clarify what I truly want to work on right now and thus reach my goals.
Conclusion
I know this way of getting work done isn’t for everyone. But I’m hoping for those who are fellow scatterbrained individuals like myself, a structured workflow tool can assist in doing what you really want to do and reaching your goals.