Author : Geoff Watts Date : October 23, 2012

I was introduced to this technique by Xavier Quesada Allue who told me he learned it from Tobias Mayer. A reference to this can also be found in Jean Tabaka’s book: Collaboration Explained (p207) entitled “Pass The Cards”

Timing:

10-15 minutes

Materials:

A minimum of 8 people, and an even number of people

Anything that you want to prioritise, written on separate cards

One card and one pen per person

Instructions:

This exercise only works with an even number of people and has a total of seven rounds

Give everybody a card with a Product Backlog item on it and a pen

In each round everyone finds someone to pair up with and they discuss the two cards they have in front of them:

  • As a pair, you have 5 points that can be allocated between the two cards based on the relative importance of the two cards
  • No half numbers are allowed so the points must be split 5:0 or 4:1 or 3:2
  • It is not about each person trying to convince the other that their card is more important than their partners card
  • The two people must agree on the scoring split
  • Once the scoring split has been agreed, the pair swap cards with each other and hold their hands up to indicate they have finished the round
  • Once everyone has finished with the round, the facilitator indicates the start of the next round where different pairings will take place, repeating the above process
  • A total of seven rounds are run and then the total of the 7 scores on the card are totalled up.
  • The cards are then laid out in order with the highest scoring cards at one end and the lower scoring cards at the other

Learning Points: 

  • It is easier to prioritise when only comparing two items
  • It is a quick way to prioritise
  • It is a democratic, inclusive process
  • If you have stakeholders who are attached to lobbying for one particular feature, this literally requires them to give it away to someone else

Variations:

  1. Try more rounds to decrease the likelihood of spurious results and cards with the same total score
  2. Try a bigger scoring range to increase the spread and reduce the impact of people unwilling to use the extremes i.e. 9 points instead of 5. While you may still not get many 9:0’s you may get more 7:2’s

9 thoughts on “Thirty-Five”

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  2. A point of interest, @tobiasmayer is right (and i so appreciate you Tobias for accrediting this to the master: Thiagi). Thiagi is /the/ world’s master in games and simulation:
    [years ago (1994!) this was part of a pilot framegames training].

    Thiagi has it published it on his website, you can see it in the archive: http://thiagi.net/archive/www/pfp/IE4H/march2008.html#Framegame and an express version is here: http://thiagi.net/archive/www/pfp/IE4H/may2008.html#StructuredSharing

    like all of his framegames, there is so many content adaptions you can do w this lovely, enliving framegame.

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  5. I use this game to prioritize the 12 agile principles. In addition to learning about prioritization it also makes the players familiar with the principles.

    Kind regards
    Sabine

  8. I played this game several times, and also with an odd number of people. In case of an odd number of people, there’s always 1 group of 3 people. I ask them to distribute 10 points (instead of 7) over the 3 cards. (I play Tobias’ version with 5 rounds and dividing 7 points each round.)

  9. Thanks for the credit. I actually learned this game from Matt Smith (http://matt-smith.net/) who used it to set the vision for the Scrum Exchange event in 2006. The form I learned was for setting a vison statement for an event:
    1. Each person writes down their ideal learning outcome.
    2. Swap cards as described
    3. Score out of 7 points (7-0, 6-1, 5-2, 4-3)
    4. Swap five times.
    5. The top two or three cards are then merged/combined to form a vision for the group, which is written up big and acts as the focus for the rest of the event—unless reconceived later (which may happen).

    I like the variation of using this to prioritize backlog items—sounds like Xavier did a “yes-and” on the game 🙂

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