The top Xmas movies and where they’re streaming, important dates for the summer break and the New Year, Xmas trivia, Kanban for Christmas.

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Boost. The power of positive impact

14 December 2021

Festive felicitations!

Have a fantastic holiday season.

Here’s our Christmas selection of news, tools, tips and ideas for ways you can make a bigger impact every day.

  • Boost holiday dates
  • Agile tips for Christmas chores
  • 10 best Christmas movies (and where Kiwis can stream them)
  • Xmas trivia
Boost logo wrapped in flashing Christmas lights.

Boost holiday dates

Here are a few important dates for the summer break and the New Year.

Last day in the office:
22 December

First day back:
10 January

First issue of Boost News:
18 January

First Agile Professional Foundation — 3 x 4-hour ICAgile online course:
14–17 February

First Introduction to Agile — 2-hour online workshop:
14 January

Using a Christmas kanban board. Image based on photo from Parabol on Unsplash.

Agile tips for Christmas

At Christmas time, many of us have more on our plates than we can handle. Often literally. So why not go Agile for Xmas.

Kanban your Christmas

Creating a Kanban board is a simple way to keep on top of your Christmas to do list.

If you haven’t used Kanban before, it’s a chance to try it out at home. If you have, you can put what you’ve learned into practice when time is precious.

Kanban is an easy Agile approach to adopt because it’s based on the idea of starting with what you do now and improving as you go. You can sum up Kanban in 4 principles and 6 methods:

4 principles:

  1. Start with what you do now.
  2. Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change.
  3. Respect current process, roles, responsibilities and titles.
  4. Leadership at all levels.

6 methods:

  1. Visualise.
  2. Limit work in progress (WIP).
  3. Manage flow.
  4. Make policies explicit.
  5. Implement feedback loops.
  6. Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally.

If you want to give it a go, create a Christmas Kanban board, visualise your Christmas to do list, track your progress and look for ways you can improve.

Tip: Keep tasks small and finish each one before you start the next. That limits work in progress and means the work flows faster.

This blog post shows what makes Kanban tick and how to create a Kanban board.

Create a Kanban board and go Agile in an instant  →

Video demo shows the power of cutting work in progress

If you’re tempted to turn repetitive tasks like writing Christmas cards into a mass production process, check out this video before you do. 

The demo tests two ways of working to see which is faster. In mass production mode they prepare ten letters by first folding 10 pieces of paper, then stuffing these 10 into envelopes, then sealing them. In one piece flow mode they fold, then stuff, then seal each envelope before moving to the next.

Can you guess which one is faster? Hint: One piece flow minimises work in progress. But many people find the result so surprising, they think it’s a trick.

One piece flow vs. mass production — video demo

For more guidance on how and why you should limit work in progress, check out this article from Boost CEO Nathan Donaldson:

Manage project risk by limiting work in progress

Watching Christmas movies surrounded by Christmas stuff.

10 best Christmas movies (and where Kiwis can stream them)

If you’re looking for some comforting Christmas classics this year, here’s where you can stream Time Out’s top 10 Xmas flicks.

  1. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
  1. Elf (2003)
  1. Die Hard (1988)
  1. Bad Santa (2003)
  1. Gremlins (1984)
  1. Home Alone (1990)
  1. A Christmas Story (1983)
  1. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
  1. The Snowman (1982)
  1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1985)

More Christmas classics

For more options, take a squiz at these “best of” lists:

Where they’re streaming

Here are a couple of sites you can use to find out which NZ streaming services offer the films that have caught your fancy:

Collage of photos from Boost's Merry Quizmas evening.

Merry Quizmas

Organised with military precision by Bex, the Boost Christmas quiz was an evening of General Knowledge and Major Indulgence. Luckily Corporal Punishment couldn’t make it.

Our next Agile Professional Foundation runs on 14–17 February
Get the skills to deliver more value, faster.

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