Continuous Integration games

[Tim Yevgrashyn]

Hello everyone,

Another question to the community: does anyone knows games aimed to show benefits of Continuous Integration? 

I have heard from my colleagues that they played a game where they filled in a kitchen cupboard with paper made cups and other kitchen stuff. And the game was clearly demonstrating benefits of Continuous Integration as long as some cups may not fit if you don't check them and etc... I don't know details, just partly remember their explanation.

Unfortunately, our favorite tastycupcakes.com doesn't contain any game for CI subject and it would be great to fill the gap.   

Tim Yevgrashyn,

Web: http://tim.com.ua
Skype: spidertim
Phone: +380 67 408 53 30

[Lisa Crispin]

Elisabeth Hendrickson's Word Count simulation does a pretty good job of showing how CI helps and fits in with other practices, though it isn't focused just on CI. She has a someone in each group volunteer to be the 'computer' who 'executes' the tests and gives the results. It's been awhile since I attended so I can't remember the details, but she has a writeup of it here: http://testobsessed.com/2008/11/13/the-wordcount-simulation/ and if you search her site for Word Count there are other posts about it. The caveat is that you need to be a really good facilitator to make sure the simulation gets people going in an agile direction. I don't feel I have the skills personally.

I personally have not been able to come up with a game that fits in the training classes I do, that really seems to add a lot of value. In the "iteration in the life" simulation that Janet and I do in our course, we have pre-printed "test results" for "existing" automated regression tests, and teams have to remember to "run" the tests (by asking for the results) and fix the bug that is in the results. So, I'm interested in more ideas on this myself.
-- Lisa

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Lisa Crispin
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Contributor to _Beautiful Testing_ (O'Reilly 2009)
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[Yves Hanoulle]

As far as I know Elisabeth is on the list.

Elisabeth anything you want to add?

y

2011/1/23 Lisa Crispin <lisa.c...@gmail.com>

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Yves Hanoulle 

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Agile Games: http://www.AgileGames.org 
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[Dale Emery]

Hi Yves, Lisa, and all,

Elisabeth Hendrickson's Word Count simulation does a pretty good job of showing how CI helps and fits in with other practices, though it isn't focused just on CI. She has a someone in each group volunteer to be the 'computer' who 'executes' the tests and gives the results. It's been awhile since I attended so I can't remember the details, but she has a writeup of it here: http://testobsessed.com/2008/11/13/the-wordcount-simulation/ and if you search her site for Word Count there are other posts about it. The caveat is that you need to be a really good facilitator to make sure the simulation gets people going in an agile direction.

Originally Elisabeth and I would guide the improvement process by asking people to identify problems, pick the most significant ones, and adjust their working agreements to address those. And sometimes we would go further, and offer ideas for addressing their problems, especially if we thought their solutions were likely to make things worse.

That's how we worked the last time we co-facilitated WordCount, nearly two years ago.

Since then, Elisabeth has developed a much more hands-off style. Her facilitation consists of:

1. "What one word expresses your experience in this iteration?"

2. Writing the one-word answers on a flip chart (one sheet per iteration)

3. "You have ten minutes to adjust your working agreements before we start the next round. Go."

I've since adopted this style, too. What we find is that teams move generally agileward, and that however they adjust their practices, they'll experience the consequences quite directly in the next round (or at the very latest, the round after that).

This works partly because the people in the room turn out to be a lot smarter than our original mildly-directive facilitation style acknowledged. If people can get fast, relevant, accurate feedback about their choices, they'll generally do the right thing.

Another factor is that we preface the simulation by giving a *very* brief (15 minute) overview, and that sets a powerful context in which the team solves their own problems. First, we describe Agile in terms of results:

Agility means: frequently delivering business value, at a sustainable pace, while adapting to changing business needs.

We post that on the wall.

We also describe a set of characteristics we see in Agile teams:

- Focus on value

- "Done" means done

- Alignment

- Frequent delivery

- Collaboration

- Coordination

- Feedback

- Visibility

We post that list on the wall, too.

So those ideas are always there on the wall for people to notice.

Oh, and we call the whole day "Adapting to Agile," and not simply "Word Count." So people walk into the room having some idea of agility, some desire to experience it, and some idea that they're here to adapt toward it.

So we focus our facilitation on starting the day by setting context, and ending the day by helping people mine lessons from the experience. In between, we largely leave things up to the people in the room.

Dale

[Lisa Crispin]

That's good to hear. The time I participated, many of the participants had just that morning been in a tutorial of mine, and it was clear from how they were reacting to the word count simulation that they hadn't learned a darn thing from me! :->

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[Tim Yevgrashyn]

Hi All,

Thanks a lot for the Word Count (aka Adapting to Agile) game. It looks interesting and I'm digging into it.

Let's keep the topic open for a while and if someone recall any other games aimed on "Continuous Integration" concept, just let me know.

Tim Yevgrashyn,

Web: http://tim.com.ua
Skype: spidertim
Phone: +380 67 408 53 30

[Yves Hanoulle]

Lisa that sound hard on yourself.

 

Some people need more time to learn about agile.

I had people I thoughed that "did not get it" and then after a few months finally start to get it and they tell me, your course had a tremendous inpact on me. only at first I did not want it to be true...

"I resisted what you told me/made me experience."

 

y

 

 

2011/1/24 Lisa Crispin <lisa.c...@gmail.com>

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[Bob Hartman]

Lisa, I run a bunch of Scrum for Teams classes during the year. In each one I give them a Scrum overview, dive into some details and make sure they understand the roles.  I then set up a simulation where I am the customer and the teams are trying to create something specifically for me.  I ask them to choose roles of ScrumMaster, team members and Product Owner so they can run like a real team. In most trainings there are 2-6 teams playing simultaneously.  I then start them off creating a vision and doing release planning for the product.  I tell them specifically to use as many of the techniques and practices they've just learned as they possibly can.  In almost 3 years of doing this, covering several hundred teams, I have had only 5 Product Owners ever think to as me (the customer) a question about what I want.  It helps me make great points with them when I point out how deeply engrained certain habits are and how different Scrum will be.

So that was a long-winded way of saying don't sweat it.  They learned it, they just didn't get a chance to process and absorb it yet.  That doesn't mean they won't in the future.

- Bob -

[Lisa Crispin]

Oh, I really didn't take it too personally, though I am always trying to get better at making sure participants have something to go try when they get back to work. If they can't remember in the afternoon one thing I said from the morning, that's not great. I'm trying to apply Training from the Back of the Room stuff and more games combined with a narrower focus so people can learn something useful instead of being overwhelmed with a bunch of info.
-- Lisa

[Mark Levison]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 8:50 AM, Bob Hartman <bob.h...@agileforall.com> wrote:

Lisa, I run a bunch of Scrum for Teams classes during the year. In each one I give them a Scrum overview, dive into some details and make sure they understand the roles.  I then set up a simulation where I am the customer and the teams are trying to create something specifically for me.  I ask them to choose roles of ScrumMaster, team members and Product Owner so they can run like a real team. In most trainings there are 2-6 teams playing simultaneously.  I then start them off creating a vision and doing release planning for the product.  I tell them specifically to use as many of the techniques and practices they've just learned as they possibly can.  In almost 3 years of doing this, covering several hundred teams, I have had only 5 Product Owners ever think to as me (the customer) a question about what I want.  It helps me make great points with them when I point out how deeply engrained certain habits are and how different Scrum will be.

Bob - I'm intrigued this ", I have had only 5 Product Owners ever think to as me (the customer) a question about what I want." seems to suggest that you run this simulation early in the course. Is that right? If so how early? How hands off are you in facilitating? 

Cheers

Mark

[Bob Hartman]

I run the simulation very early in the class and I don't say anything except the basics of what the simulation is about. I'm not surprised they fail. For the first couple times I was, but then I realized it is because they go back to old habits very quickly and it is a big learning opportunity for them when I point it out.  They make lots of other errors (not having work complete at the end of an iteration, not collaborating, etc.), but this one is the funny one because it happens pretty much all the time.

- Bob -