Maria Montessori + Agile Thinking = Scrum

Montessori education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a childs natural psychological development, as well as technological advancements in society. The overview, picked from wikipedia on Montessori gives us a clear overlap better Montessori education and Scrum. Montessori education Scrum Mixed age classrooms, withCross-Functional Teams classrooms for children aged 2 or 3 to 6 years old by far the most common Student choice of activity fromTasks Pickup by voluntary method within a prescribed range of options Uninterrupted blocks of work time Sprints A Constructivism or discoveryStory boards to epic, theme model, where students learncreations and poker planning. concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction Specialized educational materialsPoker Planning, estimation developed by Montessori and hertechniques, Sprint and Release collaborators Planning Stand-Ups Just like our Sprint Daily Stand-up where we meet and answer 3 questions the Montessori students start their school without an assembly of prayers. A mixed age group of 2 to 6 years, 6 to 9 years and 9 to 12 years, 20 students in each set, meet-up in a circle, in silence and each in a turn informs what they learnt yesterday, what they like to learn today to the Master in-charge. There are no teachers in a Montessori Education system but similar to our Scrum Master, as servants wait upon a Master. The child chooses what they want to do for the day. They walk away from the circle, gather the tools they want to learn, walks back to the circle. The Master or a matured / senior child helps the younger child to learn the concepts. End of the day or over a week the child learns the concepts with several practical questions answered, from within.

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world - Maria Montessori (MM)

Themes, Epics & Storyboards We work with a set of raw data from the client, user stories to understand clearly and to deliver what is required. We form Epic and Themes to categorize them and match it to deliver in a Sprint. When we are ready with our user stories, we finite ourselves with an acceptance criteria and a proper done statement to draw our boundaries of satisfaction, next in line are estimating the size, Deriving a duration (using the velocity) and draw up a schedule. In Montessori, the child picks up an activity and a senior / matured explains and plays with the activity to understand not just the game but series of related things. If a child picks up a world map puzzle to solve, he / she learns about the game, the colors, the continents, countries, shapes, languages, culture, day & night difference, date & time and the universe. At the end of learning, the child needs to write a paragraph or draw what she has learnt using that activity in a 5*7 card and stick it on the wall. Performance Reviews During the activity, the master observes the child, questions the child like can you draw an atlas by yourself? Can you show me where India is? Can you tell me a story of the atlas? And more. and provides a feedback on her qualities of learning in different aspects. In Montessori, the performance is evaluated over a period of time, not in a fixed test / exams format with questions to be answered and answered correctly including the ranking that kills the budding minds. The Scrum Master takes an upper hand to effectively do 3 things, what I named as 3Cs Communicate, Co-ordinate and Collaborate to deliver. He plays a vital role in organizing and removing impediments. S/He provides effective feedback to the team, to be self organized. In matured organizations the Scrum Master provide action oriented feedback that is used in their appraisal cycle and measured against objectives set and goals delivered.

The Sprint Review and Retrospect is an dynamic learning for each individual in the team to understand what he needs to focus on and how he can improve himself. The meeting is a mirror focus on where s/he stands. Matured organizations use this meeting effectively to action oriented objective setting. Conclusion: The overlap seems to be perfect, the key points that I really liked and learned are 1. Their daily ring (Standup) 2. No one assigns tasks, they are voluntarily taken by the child to play-way-learn. 3. Mixed age classroom (Cross Functional teams) & 4. Performance Review.