First forget the Scrum analogy -- the situations are in no way comparable, for the simple fact that your child is nowhere near cognitively able to process the f

First forget the Scrum analogy -- the situations are in no way comparable, for the simple fact that your child is nowhere near cognitively able to process the feedback loops (let alone corrective actions) that go along any of these fancy development methodologies. As to the practice, on its own terms: your doctor is at least partially right in that if -- in the unlikely case -- your child is suffering from some kind of developmental delay then it's better to know this sooner rather than later (before she starts getting teased by other kids, or put in the "slow" bin by teachers, say). That said -- there's a lot of variability in how people develop, and some people do just fine even after egregious-seeming delays (such as not being able to learn to read by a certain age, for example). So the good news is you can listen to the doctor's advice -- "your child should be doing <this trick> with their eyes after N months" -- but you don't need to keep scorecards and checklists, and you certainly don't need to get her to "perform" -- à la Scrum -- on anybody's schedule. Just think of these checks as an early-warning protocol for potential (but unlikely) difficulties down the road -- nothing more.