I failed to finish the prototype on time. November of 2020 was one of those terrible months where I didn’t have any control of my time until the end of the month. And I need to make a careful analysis of what went so wrong in the past few months—this a “Post-Morten” of happened to my second prototype sprint.
At least it was initially. Until I started to write about it, I didn’t realize how much free time I didn’t have and the enormous impact on my studies. In the end, I summarized my actions, improvements, and lessons.
Starting with the history of events
History of events
| Date | Event/Action |
| 23rd September | The module starts – Working well |
| 16th to 22 October | Schools closed – Had to take care of my son daily and work |
| 23rd October to 1st November | Free time again – Working again with some delay on my schedule |
| 2nd to 13th November | School vacations – Had to take care of my son daily and work |
| 14th November | Changed my organization to adopt the Pomodoro technique and replanned with a finned detail of tasks |
| 18th November | Prototype 2 session, I failed to finish my prototype |
| 27th November to 7 December | Quarantine, wife got covid, and everybody went home again. Taking care of my son and wife full time. |
| 2nd December | Sick leave and replanning |
| 3rd December | Focus on writing the Creative Reflexive Journal Entries |
Major issues identified
- Lack of available time
- Attempt to focus on Pomodoro shorter timeboxes and detailed and fined grained planning.
- I envisioned a prototype way too complicated to my restrictions. In the end, it was impossible to finish it.
- Out of control life situations (school vacations, quarantine, sickness)
- Lack of available time
Actions taken to resolve the issue
- Re-established the two hours timebox
- Reorganized the blog and a google drive with all missing posts
- Took off a week (end) of sick leave
- Adopted a faster cycle of writing production with the following process steps:
- Reading the content of the lecture and related content
- Topic structure
- First draft
- Review adding images, links and references
- Took of major intermediate activities like challenges and replanned to do them after finish the writings.
Learned
- It’s possible to try to extend my limit to submit my work. Due to my sick leave. I’ll try to don’t use it and finish everything without this resource.
- Writing should come first, during, and after. After spending so much time working on the writings, I found it easier to keep open a draft version to put my insights there. Since my time constraints are tight, this makes it easier to work on them continuously.
- It’s better to accomplish modest goals than to leave greater unfinished dreams. Work in small actions.
Improved
- Time-management: I work better with 2 hours time-boxes is my best way to work.
- I improved my blog organization.
- Writing process.
Lucas Souza 