Timing: 60 minutes (can be extended to 90 minutes by running more iterations). Setup/explanation takes 10 minutes; we’ll run 4-5 iterations of [3-minutes of execution, 3-4 minutes debrief, and 3 minutes of planning].

snowflakes

Materials:

Pretend money (unit bills [euro/dollar], approx 100 units); ream of paper; 2 pairs of scissors for every 4 participants; audible timer; markers and flipchart for each table or dry erase board; optional gum or tape to attach snowflakes to the wall

Room needs tables that seat 4-8 people; for each table set up 1 pair of scissors, $5, and 5 blank sheets of paper. In a prominent location, add a label that says “Paper: 2 for $1; Scissors: $3″. Set up a big visible chart for each team either on dry erase or flip chart; set up these column headers:

Iteration, Cash on hand; WIP; Scissors Count; Sales Qty; Paper on hand

Instructions:If you’ve got more than 20 people, you’ll need an assistant–it’s fine to pull someone from the audience.  Start a 3-minute timer countdown and say: “Your objective is to run a profitable business by creating and selling paper snowflakes. I’ll demonstrate making one for you right now to prove it can be done in under 3 minutes. First we fold a triangle, then fold that in half and in half again to ensure we have at least 3 axes. We give the triangles a rounded edge as so; then cut out shapes along the folds, and unfold it to produce a snowflake like this. You’ll have a limited amount of time to cut–since we’re not really here to make snowflakes–we’re here to experiment with running a business. After a 3-minute iteration, we’ll do a de-brief, then you can have 3 minutes to coordinate with your team (sprint planning) followed by the next iteration. If you run out of supplies, you can buy them at any time from the front of the room here. Paper is 2 for $1; Scissors are $3.  Your table can self-organize around how to build the snowflakes. Any questions?” If they ask anything about acceptance criteria, say we can discuss when they come to sell you a snowflake.

Assistant/Customer Instructions (SPOILER–do not share this with audience):

Minimum acceptance criteria: snowflake must have a general sense of being round, it must have 3 axes of symmetry, and must have even, precise cuts. Torn paper, squares/rectangles, lots of overcuts on the snowflake, paper that the audience supplied–will all be rejected. Every time a snowflake is presented to you, give simple and direct feedback, e.g., I can’t buy this because these edges are torn–the quality isn’t high enough; this one doesn’t say “round” to me, can’t buy it; this is beautiful–I’ll give you $1 for it! Don’t haggle, just move on to the next vendor.

Valuation of snowflakes: Intricate, unique, symmetrical, beautiful snowflakes will be bought for $1-$5. In the first round, I never see anything worth more than $1. I rarely pay as much as $3. Encourage innovation by telling people “this is the first time I’ve seen a signed snowflake! $2!” or some such comment. Encourage intricacy–”wow–lots of space cut out, I like that”.  Size matters–small snowflakes often can be purchased only two for a dollar unless they’re particularly ornate. As you buy snowflakes, either attach them to the wall or arrange them on the table in order of low value to high value. We’re not stating it in an obvious way, but hint at the valuation scheme every once in a while by hovering a new snowflake over the spectrum and say that this one “fits right about here, ok, $2″.

Debrief Instructions:

Observe what the teams are doing, and help them think like a lean startup. Give only one hint per debrief, then let them try it out for the next sprint. Some teams ignore what you say; that’s fine. Hints are like the following:

Do you have to cut out a snowflake to get customer feedback?

Is your team making a profit?

Do you know what the customer wants?

Have you followed the customer around a bit to see what he wants to buy?

What happens when you make clone snowflakes?

Do you have to use the whole sheet of paper?

Learning Points:

• customer discovery is a whole team activity (product owners can give developers a false sense of security)
• you’ve got to get out of the building (or in this case, away from the table) to find out what customers are willing to pay for
• delivery pressure with creative work makes people forget the big picture
• business & learning communities work better when we collaborate and share with more people (tables don’t have to remain isolated islands)
• waste comes from the assumption that we’ve got to use the whole sheet, and that volume is more important than customer discovery
• we don’t have to make anything at all to learn the acceptance criteria: simply go up to the facilitator and ask– what are you looking for? Response: beauty, symmetry, intricacy, round shape.
• a good customers’ time is limited and precious–use it wisely

Teams will form and share their favourite techniques and methods, with examples of where they have been successful.

Teams will then pair off against other teams and present their favourite methods and challenge the other team with counter examples or questions.

The rest of the room vote on the winner. We repeat this in a series of four to five rounds until a winner is found.

Along the way we hear lots of examples of where analysts have deployed successful techniques and hear what situations they may not work in as well.

Learning Objectives
This is a fun interactive way to review a broad range of methods and techniques, to talk about them, and hear stories of when they have been successful in the field.

You bring
Your variety of experiences, an inquisitive mind and a pen and paper. Post it notes would also be good.

Equipment
Pens, blue tac, index cards

Audience level
All levels of experience are welcome. Diversity of the whole room is what is most important.

Mechanics
Teams or individuals are briefed to write down their favourite method or technique in a specific domain (eg testing) and to talk about the technique’s strengths and how it is useful.

Then teams are paired off against each other and in turns have a short debate as to which technique is better. Give each side only 30 seconds or so to explain their technique to keep the adrenaline up and focus on.

Each team then gets to nominate one place where the technique will not work and then restate why their technique is superior.

All up the topic debate should last about 3 minutes.

Then you ask the audience to vote and the loser gets posted to the wall of death.

Round 1 continues until everyone has had a turn and half the cards are now on the wall.

Round 2 begins by having the opponents of the previous round now join together to form a larger team around the winner of their round. (up to team sizes of 4) and asked to briefly reiterate among themselevs the strengths and weaknesses of their technique.

Round 2 the proceeds in the same form as round 1 but with slightly more time to rebut and challenge to accommodate the larger team size. Target 4-5 minutes per round now.

The next round of losers are posted to a new section of wall (perhaps above round 1 losers in a pyramid structure.)

Round 3 and subsequent rounds follow the same pattern until you get to the last round and the ultimate battle is played.

With large groups you may pool them into multiple leagues and then bring them together for the last 2 rounds in a series of finals.

Goal: to practice the relative estimation technique by comparing user stories

Preparation:

• Backlog items written or printed on index cards
• Items should describe activities, which are well known to the team members and can be quickly estimated. You can play the game either with the real backlog or you can use one of the tasty backlogs provided below.
• About 5-7 index cards of a different color to mark columns.
• You need a room with a table big enough to fit all team members and all cards

Execution/Directions:

• Put the cards on one deck and mix them
• The first team member takes the card and puts it on an arbitrary place on a table
• The next team member takes the next card. If it seems to him smaller that the first one, he puts it left to the first card. If it seems to him bigger that the first one, he puts it right to the first card. If it seems to him of roughly the same size, he puts it under the first card.
• The next team member can
  • Take the next card from the deck and do the same decision as the previous team member.
  • Move and card lying on the table to a different column (with appropriate reasoning).
• The other team members continue these steps until:
  • They run out of cards and
  • All team members are satisfied with the placement of the cards
• At the end of the game it is possible to assign labels for the columns, e.g. XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL or Fibonacci numbers.

Discussion:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this estimation technique?
• Do you know any other estimation techniques?
• Is an estimation uncertainty taken into account?
• What is your personal experience with estimation?
• What happened to backlog items with insufficient amount of information?

The Small & Medium Business Edition.
Can be adapted to teach other iteration-based Agile frameworks.

It is proven that the game can be adapted to fit the particular needs of trainers and serve different sizes of audience.

A “standard” game is described below, but you are encouraged to adopt it to fit your particular needs.

Timing: 100-120 minutes

• 100 minutes – when using fast team estimation techniques
• 120 minutes – when using planning poker or other estimation tools

Group Size: 4-25 people

• Ideal is 2-3 teams of 4-6 people (gives 8-18 people)
• Can be extended with Scrum Masters

LEGO Boxes: a LEGO box for a team of 4-6 people

• I use “Basic Brick Set #6177”
• It takes four boxes for 20 people

Well formed, well understood stories move freely and easily. Poorly defined or misunderstood stories stay in the centre of the table – when this occurs the facilitator invites the team to break their silence and discuss before trying again.

Dominant team members will be revealed by their white knuckles, or by putting two fingers on the card instead of just one. Facilitators should be aware of this and highlight that to the team.

Great fun and a really fun alternative to planning poker. You can see this in action by viewing Ouija Board Estimation via YouTube

Dead easy to set up, quick and very fun. Even more fun over beers. Sit team in a circle. Ask the team for a boy or girl’s name, a household object and a location. Write down somewhere visible if required.

The team must then make a story by only speaking one word at a time, and going around the circle.

Rules:

• The story must “flow”
• Players can add the words “full stop” to indicate a new sentence
• The story elements the team chose must be used

Learning points:

Collaboration & Emergence. Players must be able to build on the previous word successfully. Nobody knows what the story will look like at the start, and it changes based on peoples own input. Some players will throw in “bad” words which are difficult to build on. These are BLOCKS. A good collaborator can turn a BLOCK into an OFFER which allows the next players to build the story more easily and create flow.

You can read more about offers and blocks in collaboration on my blog.

(this exercise was co-created as part of a collaboration day between myself and Geoff Watts)

Play the game:
one hour, including prep and debrief
(The first time this will be too short, but it’s enough to get started and get some value. Add a half hour the first time if you want to play to the end)

Optional / after the game:
an action-planning activity, as you would do at the end of a retrospective.

Overview:
—————

• This card game highlights your Team’s hard-to-reach Big Goal.
• Players write cards with Obstacles outside their control, stopping them from reaching the Goal.
• Then together they use Fearless Change++ patterns to design influence Strategies to go over, around & thru obstacles respectfully & boldly.

++ game uses the 48 patterns from the book Fearless Change (c) (Manns & Rising) used with permission

Conceived by a group at Play4Agile 2011 and designed by Deborah & Ilja Preuss. Download and use it FREE of charge, under a CreativeCommons 3.0 license

Learning Points:
————————

• Shift a group from “but we can’t…” to “but we could try…”
• This is a gut-level shift, and comes simply from putting objections aside for an hour and playing a “yes-and” game with real obstacles. Typically, optimism increases, mood lightens. Can also teach consensus decision making (using thumb-voting, for example), collaboration and appreciation.

* Note: the game is designed for **a real team**, not just a group. To play with a non-team, add time and facilitation to help them find common interests and a common goal. In this case, roleplaying may be required by some to form a “team”.

Discussion and facilitation guidance:
————————————————-
See download site for game instructions, link to public feedback document and contact form.

Link to Game:
——————–

http://fearlessjourney.info

FearlessJourney_v1.0_WhereToGetTheGame.pdf (406 KB)

• 1 hour

Players (5..8 recommended):

• You and your colleagues

Ingredients:

• Internet access

Directions:
In this game, players share their hobbies, tedious chores, and what they like or dislike about work. This enhances your understanding of the participants while uncovering ways to make work more fun. Clicking on the image to the right will take you to an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, this image will be used as the “game board,” which categorizes the four different types of activities you and your coworkers do.

• Quadrant 1: Joy – work activities that people enjoy (ex. conferences)
• Quadrant 2: Hobbies – activities outside of work that people enjoy (ex. reading, biking, cooking)
• Quadrant 3: Chores – activities outside of work that people don’t enjoy (ex. cleaning)
• Quadrant 4: Job – work activities that people don’t enjoy (ex. mundane office meetings)

You will also see two icons in the top left corner:

• Happy face: what you like to do
• Frown face: what you don’t like to do

To add the icons, simply drag them to the board and describe what they represent. Everyone can collaborate and edit the placement and description of each image, which can be seen in real time. The results will be organized into a spreadsheet at the end to optimize the benefits of the game.

Key Points:
When people enjoy what they are doing and become engaged through self-motivation, they can push themselves to form innovative ideas and breakthroughs. Their participation is catalyzed by the activity they are involved in and they channel their personal commitment toward achieving the goal. Play Job or Joy to discover what your colleagues like/dislike to do in order to better understand who they are and how you can all maximize your joy and productivity — both during and outside of work.

Just imagine you are on the Daily Standup meeting. Each player brings his issues to the team and also trying to solve issues that are already open.

You will be surprised by patterns of collaborative work and the power of solving issues together with the team.

Timing:
40-60 minutes.
If you use timeboxed iterations, this could run faster, otherwise game ends when there are no cards left.

Materials:
Deck of playing cards (option, take the deck from 6 to A). Table for each group of 4-8 participants.

Nobody’s Perfct – instructor’s cheat sheet

Nobody”s Perfct – hands out

Nobody’s Perfct – Presentation

Instructions:

Draw the rule- and mindset on a flipchart paper (or spread the Handout, see attached)

Let the audience play in groups of 4 – 8 people per group

• If you have more than 4 people, let them play in pairs or as singles.
• If you have a larger audience, get a facilitator from each group (ScrumMaster?) who has to watch out that rules are followed and a discussion happens. If you apply timeboxing he’s to take care of it as well.

Every player gets a set of 4 cards.

• Every card type represents an Issue/Failure (blacks) or a Solution (reds), which could be Technical (Cross & Diamonds) or Social (Clubs & Hearts). See the attached handout for details.

In his/her turn each player can

1. Start with the heaviest problem. Play the card. Explain the problem.
2. If you have a solution or a small step in the right direction: play the card, explain your approach.
3. If you are not able to do anything more you’re done.
4. Fill up to 4 cards from the stack. It’s the next players turn.

Play in iterations (10 Minutes / Iteration). That allows you to extend the rules stepwise.

• Start with closed hands.
• Extension: introduce the pile of wisdom.
• Extension: play openly
• Extension: if a group is missing something valuable for them, allow them to introduce another rule given by themselves

The pile of wisdom is a stack of best practices and “proved” solutions:

• If you face a problem on the desk and you are not able to cover it with a card on your hand you are allowed to take a card from the pile of wisdom. Take the first card on top and try to solve a given problem with it.
• Once a problem is solved put it to the pile of resolved problems and put the solutions to the pile of wisdom (on top if solved out of hand, on bottom if solved from pile of wisdom). Only the last solution is visible.

This game makes people comfortable with bringing their failures to the team and solving them together. Make a good debriefing with learning from different aspects of the game (playing open, having a “pile of wisdom” and etc.)

Cards are used only as a medium – make sure people bring examples each time they play a card. Discussion is a most valuable part of the game.

Creadits:

Ellen Grove, Martin Heider, Holger Koschek, Timofey Yevgrashyn

… with a lot of help from Antti Kirjavainen, Nancy van Schooenderwoert and Björn Jensen

Timing:1 Hour

Overview:

Most of us find ourselves multitasking at some point and are possibly even proud of our multitasking skills. Here is one game that was created by Tobias Mayer with collaboration from  Alan Cyment and introduced to me by Gerry Kirk and Yves Hanoulle at SDEC11 that allows you to simulate the actual costs of task switching. The game involves pairing up to perform three different simple but coordinated tasks and comparing your times and experiences after using both multitasking and single tasking processes. It generates a lot of laughs and a lot of excellent discussion.

Learning Points:

Exposing the myths of multitasking and demonstrating the costs of task switching. Tips and links for avoiding multitasking.

When your team is ready for it, this is a great game for starting the discussion on multitasking (personal and project) and how to change.

Link to Game: http://winnipegagilist.blogspot.com/2012/01/multitasking-game-handsnumberssong.html