Timing:

30 minutes including prep and debrief

Overview:
A simple little game to help Scrum teams learn the importance of having a common understanding of a story.

So a while back I was having seeing a team have different interpretations of a story causing some confusion. Differing interpretations of the feature caused a little backtracking and introduced waste into the sprints.. nothing awful, just not ideal.

I came up with a very simple exercise to help the team understand that we can too easily make assumptions that everyone understand exactly what we mean, and the in fact our mental models are often quite different.

So I asked them to write down how they make Spaghetti Bolognese (or if you prefer, like me, Ragu*), a dish most us were likely to know. So they spent a few minutes thinking about it, and after everyone was done we went round the team reading out the ingredients.

Can you guess what happened?

Everyone had similar ingredients, but not the same. Most people had Mince, Onion, Carrot, Tomatoes.. some extended it into Celery (correct), a few added mushrooms (wrong), I had both Beef & Pork mince as well as Pancetta, Red Wine, Nutmeg, Oregano, Milk and Beef stock and not Spaghetti but Tagliatelle (I was taught this way by an 84yr old Italian Nonna, any deviation was food crime in her eyes ).

Learning Points:

So what did it tell us? We all know what Spaghetti Bolognese (*cough*  Tagliatelle al Ragu) is, but all had different interpretations. The team could draw the parallel from this to the assumptions we were making about other peoples understanding of a feature. It led to some very interesting discussions and a team habit of reiterating to each other the feature under development during sprint planning.

It eliminated much of the confusion and helped the team pull in a single direction.

Link to Game:

Ragu or Bolognese?

*Not Ragu the brand, Ragu is the correct name for the dish we know as Spaghetti Bolognese.

• 1 hour

Players (5..8 recommended):

• Project manager or facilitator
• Internal team, partners, or customers

Ingredients:

• internet access
• a to-do list

Directions:
The goal of this activity — based on A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill, and Steven Covey’s description in their book First Things First — is to prioritize your to-do list in a way that helps you plan ahead and work efficiently.

Clicking on the image to the right will start an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, this 2×2 matrix will be used as the “game board,” and will help you organize the urgency and importance of your tasks. Each cell has a different significance:

• Cell 1: Urgent, important – these tasks should be at the top of your to-do list
• Cell 2: Not urgent, important – these items are likely to be neglected, but are necessary for long-term success. Set aside time each week to focus on these in order to be more productive. This cell is highlighted to remind you of its significance.
• Cell 3: Urgent, not important – these tasks suck your time and are often the result of poor-planning. They should be minimized or eliminated.
• Cell 4: Not urgent, not important – these items are trivial time-wasters that should be eliminated

There will be two different icons that players can drag onto the chart and describe to represent the tasks:

• Green squares – priority tasks that require attention
• Red square – tasks to minimize/eliminate

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can edit the positions and descriptions of the icons. Also, the integrated chat facility allows you and your players to collaborate to form the most efficient to-do list.

Key Points:
When it comes to our to-do lists, we tend to focus on urgent items while disregarding the importance of planning for tasks that are necessary to reach our overall goal. This negligence leads to even more stress in the long run, as everything will eventually become urgent if not prepared for. Play Merrill Covey Matrix to identify the purpose and value of your tasks and to minimize or eliminate time-wasters. Plan ahead to avoid busy work and to accomplish your goal in a productive manner.

Ingredients:
• Internet access

Players (5..8 recommended):
• Business Manager / Business Owner
• Employees / Team members

Directions:
Often times your end state is not what you imagined, as there are always unpredictable obstacles and detours that alter your trek to the finish line. To help you recognize these interferences before you begin your journey, we have collaborated with the Gamestorming team to bring you this online game based on the well-known SWOT analysis strategy. The goal of the SWOT Analysis Game is to uncover how to attain your desired end state.

Clicking on this image will start an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, there will be four different icons that you can drag onto your online SWOT Analysis “game board” to capture your ideas:

• Rocket ships represent opportunities – leads that you can focus your energy on
• The fit person represents strengths – what you have going for you
• The weak person represents weaknesses – anything that can be improved upon
• Bombs represent threats – obstacles that you must surpass

The SWOT chart is divided into four quadrants for the four categories of thoughts.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the ideas. Also, you can use the integrated chat facility to encourage the players to expand on their ideas and come up with fresh insights.

Key Points:
The SWOT Analysis Game allows you to predict the challenges that stand between the present and your desired destination, as well as see your advantages that can be used to overcome these obstacles. Rather than waiting to understand what should have been done in hindsight, take time to identify what you must do to attain your goal. The extensive collaboration involved can uncover blind spots and motivate deeper insights. Also, the spatial organization will allow you to understand specific factors that will be integral in your journey toward your target.

60 minutes for the exercise and around 30 minutes to debrief

Materials:

Construction paper, pens, sharpies (multi-color), scissors, duct tape, cardboard, rubber bands, tin foil, bows, ribbons, blank cards, any other similar items you can get your hands on.

Instructions:

Guide participants through the materials in the handout. See the facilitator guide for more information with guidance.

You will be leading pairs through multiple iterations of : empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. This is the Design Thinking process.

Learning Points:

• The power of empathy and listening
• Finding needs and insights
• Using prototypes as a learning mechanism
• Using feedback to drive understanding and rapid iteration

Facilitator Guide & Handout:

Facilitator Guide

Participant Handout

Organization and prioritization are two distinct activities that can be used to improve the quality of a product backlog. A simple linear list is difficult to prioritize. As well, many stakeholders are forgotten in the rush to deliver customer value. See example list of stakeholders. The purpose of this game is to expand the view of multiple stakeholders as well as illuminate the value of organizing the work without prioritizing.

Learning Points

● The value of organizing before prioritizing

Timing

45 minutes. (Variant: drop a round to shorten)

Ingredients

The game consists of the following items for each participating team:

1. Persona Cards: (5”x8” cards) There are four persona cards or sheets. Each persona should be copied to a separate card.
2. Story Cards: (3”x5” cards) In this game, the stories consist of a verb and a noun (e.g Fertilize Crops). There are 18 cards, but more cards can be added. One verb noun grouping should be copied to each card.
3. Category Cards: (3”x5” blank cards – use different colour than story cards) – The category cards are initially blank. A set of blank cards are needed for each round and team. Typically there are around 5 Categories per round.
4. Black Marker: Any pen or felt tip mark should work. This is used for writing on the category cards. One timer is needed in order to time each round and the debrief sessions.

Recipe

1. Introduction (5 min)
   • Draw simple Product Backlog in Scrum
   • Ask participants what it is
   • Comment that there is a lot of complexity that may not be best represented by asingle sorted list.
2. Form the group into teams – each at a table. (2 min) 4 seems a good number for a team. More than this and it is hard to jointly sort the cards. 5 may be OK.
3. Introduce the domain. Once upon a time, there was a farm and different people had different ideas how the farm should be run. (MORE)
4. Iterate! There are 4 rounds – each with a different persona (see table below)
   • Shuffle story cards between rounds
   • Introduce Persona (1 min + 1 min for questions)
   • Ask participant organize the backlog based on the persona.
   • Debrief the round. Do this in a circle. See debrief questions below.
5. Debrief the whole game.

Round 1

• Persona: Producer/Farmer
• Round Duration: 5′
• Debrief*: 4′

Round 2

• Persona: Customer/Buyer
• Round Duration: 4′
• Debrief*: 3′

Round 3

• Persona: Farm Bureau/Inspectors
• Round Duration: 4′
• Debrief*: 3′

Round 4

• Persona: Land Owner
• Round Duration: 3′
• Debrief*: 10′ – whole game

* Larger groups may require more debrief time.

Debrief Questions

First Round

• Each team: talk a little about how you organized the backlog.
• What is the same/different?
• What else did you notice?
• If no one mentions, may notice that we are used so used to prioritizing we often go there automatically. Did any of the teams create a structure that helps them understand their world?

Second/Third

• Same questions as first plus
• What was different from earlier round(s)?

Final

• Over all 4 rounds, what have you noticed about backlog organization?
• How does this relate to product backlogs that you work with?
• How well do real world product backlogs represent different stakeholders?

Story Cards

There are 18 story cards. Each story card consists of a verb and noun pair.

(Note: Michael S removed story numbers since it may confuse people)

Stories:

• Fertilize Crops
• Spray Insecticide
• Harvest Crop
• Buy Seed
• Rotate Crops
• Weed Fields
• Survey Market
• Kill Groundhogs
• Lay Fallow
• Define Market Needs
• Till The Ground
• Assure Organic (inspect for selected crops)
• Plant Seed
• Sell Early Summer Crops
• Sell Late Summer Crops
• Water Plants
• Recover from Natural Disaster
• Forecast Profit

Personas

Producer / Farmer

As a farmer, I’m focused on legally maximizing my profits by controlling costs, buying the right seeds, planning crop rotations, reducing pests, and timing the release of my products to markets. I follow closely the agreements set forth in the lease with the Land Owner.

Consumer / Buyer

As a customer of the local farm, I want healthy and reasonably priced food that has been grown with sustainable and environmentally friendly practices.

Land Owner

The farm land has been in my family for over 200 years. My family’s income depends on the revenue generated from the farm lease. Hence, we are interested in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the land. As a family, we have been engaged in wildlife preservation and conservation of natural resources. It is imperative our property used in accordance with all relevant laws and regulations.

Farm Bureau / Inspectors / Regulatory Agencies

As a regulatory body, we are tasked with ensuring that produce is safe and fit for human consumption. We test and verify that the land is used in accordance with local, state, and federal regulation to protect from erosion, run off, soil depletion and other activities that may harm the land. We enforce all animal protection laws and regulations.

FAQ

There are no story points (cost). How does this make any sense?

The whole point of the game is to ignore prioritization. Story cost is only relevant for making prioritization decisions. In this game we want people to think about stakeholders and how to organize the work in terms of who cares about what.

Credits

This game was developed at Agile Games 2010 in Boston by:

• Michael Sahota
• Mary Gorman
• Warren Elliott
• Greg Ott
• Dan Zaino
• Judy Rivais

Ingredients:

• 100+ Toothpicks (or something similar)
• At least one Die

Directions:

Participants line up in a row with a collection of toothpicks (or something similar) placed with the first participant. The first participant rolls a die to determine how many toothpicks to pass to the next participant. Each participant then takes turns rolling the die and passing the corresponding amount of toothpicks to the next player. The final player creates a stack of toothpicks based on his/her roll and then passes the die back to the first participant to continue with the next round. Play until it is obvious where the stacks are forming.

Learning Points:

• Even though all participants have the same odds, inventory still piles up. Tie this in to Value Streams and software.
• In software, requirements are your inventory. It is wasteful to process them all up front.

CREDIT: The Goal, Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, 1984

Posted by Mike