It was 2003 in the Washington DC suburbs of Northern Virginia. I was a realtor early in my career, and recognized the signs of a housing bubble. So I sold the home I bought in 1999 for a profit of over 100K and waited for it to burst while I rented. Little did I know that would take over 2 years, and housing prices would continue to skyrocket. Many homeowners who purchased from 2003-2005 were so under water they weren't sure they would ever sell.
In spite of the burst, and the massive amount of foreclosures that followed, prices continued to stay high for a few years. I eventually found a foreclosure that didn't need much work that could turn a great profit in a few years. Or so I thought.
So in 2008, we bought our great deal, quickly got it livable, and moved in. We put in hardwoods, painted, and did some minor repairs, using the Scrum framework. Despite several arguments, we got it done and were happy in our home.
Fast-forward to 2010. We saw other homes that needed the same care that ours did, and thought we were done enough to sell, but the value hadn't climbed enough.
So we used some Shu-Ha-Ri to reinvent the rules we had started with. We moved from Scrum to Kanban and made some time for fun. Eventually we sold it, and we've since renovated 4 more properties.
We've used agile principles and frameworks for all of it.
We've turned our 12K investment in 2008 into 250K, in under 10 years, while working full-time and raising six children.
This is my story. This is Flipping Agile.
There's a whole lot more to the story, so if you're interested, here's the whole story, as told on Coaching Agile Journeys.