Quick Scrum Simulation to help

[Mark Levison]

I've a client who has engaged me for a 3hr executive session to help them get their heads wrapped around some basic Agile ideas. The session is to be divided into 3 parts. 

For the first part he says they've all done alot of reading on Agile/Scrum and they have a good understanding (gulp).

I need a great simulation to help me suss out what they really understand and to help them feel what Agile/Scrum is really like.

So far I have two options and as Yves/George and others frequently say, two options is a trap:

1. Ball Point Game - Described best by Declan http://dpwhelan.com/blog/uncategorized/learning-scrum-through-the-ball-point-game/ - Pros: many key Scrum insights can be derived from it.
2. Learning Scrum Through Goldilocks (my own): http://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2012/11/learning-scrum-through-games-golidocks-iteration-ii.html - Pros: the basics of Scrum are experienced in 20-30 minutes

So far I'm leaning towards the ballpoint game - but would like another option.

Missing from both of these is any simple way to discover the cost of changing team members and moving them around. That maybe asking too much.

Suggestions?

Mark

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[Alan Dayley]

How about the 59-minute Scrum Game. It works well for understanding the cerimonies and rhythms of Scrum.

Then, in the second or third sprint, move some people around. Like swap Product Owners out in Sprint 2 and then back in 3. Or even move a team member or two with them.

And, designate someone on Team A to be the one that has to accept the work of Team B. This way that person is busy doing Team A work and gets interrupted to review the other team's work. And Team B has to wait sometimes for the reviewer to answer their question.

Shake it up! Move it around! And then retrospect on the experience.

Alan

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[Mark Levison]

Allan - brillant. A couple of observations. 

59 minute Scrum simulation and my simulation are close friends. Mine is effectively a 3rd generation of the earlier game.

I love the idea of moving people around however I only have 6 people in the room. As a weak alternative I suppose I could start inviting team members out of the room into the hallway to chat :-)

Thanks for the help

Mark

[Elad Sofer]

I like the ball point game a lot.

I find it really easy to demonstrate many scrum elements and I based on the focus I am looking for I am tweaking it. For example:

- I offer the teams a prize - almost always "productivity" drops.

- I change team members.

- I take out a person in the middle of a sprint.

- I change the length of the "in between" time to allow more time for reflection and it usually improves results.

- I ask the group powerful question to show the value in coaching style leadership.

On top of everything the energy in the room is usually very high and seeing all these balls fly in the air is great.

Another option you may consider is using several different games to demonstrate different aspects: so you may do ball point + painters game + marshmallow challenge.

My 2 cents,

Elad.

Send from my mobile. Please excuse typos. 

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[Timofey Yevgrashyn]

hi,

Just a thought that you may want to teach the group of principles rather than techniques.

I mean, if they don't plan to use Scrum from the next day - choose the Ball Point Game and help them to understand that they can achieve a lot by starting with simple rules and agreements and constantly Inspect & Adapt.

When they see how many Ball Points they reached in several iterations and with what minimum estimates they've started - this could inspire to move forward

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[Jean-Charles Meyrignac]

You didn't mention who is your public.

If you have to teach a team of developers, I would suggest some Kanban/XP game.

If it's only managers, try a Scrum game.

And if it's upper management, try a Lean game.

JC

[Sal Freudenberg]

Both of those games look good, and I personally love the Ball Point Game.

As far as I can see, the Ball Point Game would be a particularly strong candidate for mixing the team up and quickly seeing the effect on how fast the team can go. The constraining factor for this 'swapping teams effect' seems to be the number of people you have (6, right?) rather than the right choice of game.

If you had more people it would be simple to have two teams doing either exercise (possibly in different break out areas) and then to swap some people part way through.

Of course, as you said, you could have someone leave the room, but the risk is that those people miss out on experiencing some of the earlier learnings.

I think doing Ball Point and having someone miss an iteration sounds like your best option. The trick will be to have this happen late enough that the team have a steady(ish) velocity so you can see the swapping-out effect, yet early enough that they will miss something key in the evolution of the solution the team come to.

I'd be interested to hear what you try and how it goes.

Sal

[Sal Freudenberg]

Ooooh, just a thought but how about rather than swapping someone out of the team you add someone random in? (almost just pulling someone in who is passing in the corridor and has no idea what they are doing, although you might need to arrange it a bit more than that)?

That way the whole of your group of 6 can participate in the whole game AND you can see the effect of changing team composition?

On Thursday, June 13, 2013 2:48:56 AM UTC+1, Mark Levison wrote:

[Andre Dhondt]

Sal said:

> If you had more people it would be simple to..

> swap some people part way through.

When I've done so in the ball flow game, there's no measurable impact. It's simple enough to onboard someone in 3 minutes...

[Andre Dhondt]

Sal said:
a thought but how about rather than swapping someone out of the team you add someone random in?

Again, in the 2-3 times I tried it we enjoyed talking about it, but there was no measurable effect.

[Mark Levison]

Jean-Charles - thanks. Its execs.

Cheers

Mark

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[Pierre Neis]

Hi

Jean Tabaka's 59 minutes Scrum is still a runner to me.

I never segregate between developers and senior management: they are just different kind of teams.

Lean game (as suggested by JC) can be an issue because Senior Management like to procrastinate. In 59 minutes Scrum you need to prioritize and size.

Boris Gloger's Ball Point is quite interesting to distill ideas of changing requirements and team disturbsion.

Kind regards, cordialement, mit freundlichen Grüssen,

Pierre E. Neis, psm, cspo, csp 
Scrum/Lean Coach - Senior Management Consultant



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[Jean-Charles Meyrignac]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 4:49 AM, Mark Levison <ma...@mlevison.com> wrote:

Jean-Charles - thanks. Its execs.

If they are execs, teaching them Scrum is absolutely useless, since they don't work in team and they don't work on requirements.

Scrum is too different from their way of working, so it will just appear theoretical (I know, I did this mistake previously !).

If you have 3 hours, I would suggest the following format:

1) first hour: try a game about how teams work efficiently (I'm suggesting an idea at the end of this mail). Then ask them what they learned, and then explain what has to be retained

2) pause

3) second hour: try a game about how managers work efficiently (sorry, I have no game, but think about collecting requirements and satisfaction). Ask them what they learned, and what has to be retained

4) pause again

5) last hour: try a game about how execs work efficiently (try a lean game or a supply chain management game, sorry I'm no help here), ask what they learned and what has to be retained

About the game for teams, I would suggest the airplane game with a twist:

do that with teams of different sizes.
For example, one team of 3 people, one team of 5 and one team of 7.

Measure the productivity by dividing the amount of produced planes by the number of workers.

The goal is to show that large teams are less efficient (Ringelmann's effect), and that early quality and self-organization is very important to engage people (at the beginning people are reluctant to fold paper, and at the end, they are highly motivated).

Focus especially on collecting what they understood, and how teams that they have to manage work.

Good luck !

JC

[Pierre Neis]

Hi JC,

Here the link to one of my latest presentation (sorry for advertising). In the last slides, you can find a games process (PLöRK) that I have used to train/coach senior leaders: http://www.slideshare.net/PierreNeis/plrk-gamification-and-group-coaching-combined

The corner stone game is the "take the win win wave": http://tastycupcakes.org/2012/12/take-the-win-win-wave/

Purpose at this level is to visualize the individual work process (VSM), visualize individual engagement in the whole governance process, identify overlappings, issues, risks and fix it through action plan. Typically: VSM+Gemba!

Kind regards, cordialement, mit freundlichen Grüssen,

Pierre E. Neis, psm, cspo, csp 
Scrum/Lean Coach - Senior Management Consultant

19 place Bleech |L-7610 Larochette | Luxembourg
M: +352 661 727 867

email:  pierr...@we-and-co.com
web:    http://wecompany.wordpress.com/ http://thescrumcoach.wordpress.com/
Meet with me: http://meetwith.me/pierreneis
 

Contact me: pierre.neis

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[Mark Levison]

JC the client asked for an hour on Agile/Lean,  an hour on pitfalls and an hour on next steps. I'm obliged to deliver something like that.

I will use the ball point game and play some variant.

Cheers
Mark

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[Derek W. Wade]

Last year I was given 3 hours to take execs thru "intro to agile, advice for implementing, and next steps."  Here's what I did:

http://derekwwade.net/blog/2011/10/16/experience-and-reflection-over-lecture-and-advice/

It was well-received, so I wrote it up with instructions and pictures. :)

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[Mark Levison]

Derek - Brillant. I given the agreed on structure I can't use your exercise but I love the debrief approach.

Danke

Mark

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[Derek W. Wade]

Thanks, Mark. The best "lesson" is the one where the "students" discover it for themselves. 

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[Mark Levison]

Thanks gang - in the end we ran the ball point game and that wound being a powerful enough jumping off point that they opted to reorder the product backlog based on their discoveries. Net result we didn't get to play any other games - not even my personal favourite penny game :-)

Cheers

Mark

[Derek W. Wade]

Mark -

After soliciting the advice, it's so great that you are sharing the results - thank you!

I'm curious how Ball-Point led to reordering a backlog, because to me Ball-Point teaches flow. 

What OBSERVATIONS did the team make about the game itself?

What CONCLUSIONS did they reach that led them to reorder the backlog?

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Sorry if I'm brief or a bad typist; I'm mobile.

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[Mark Levison]

BallPoint made them think about process improvement and getting better in every cycle. It also made them realize that they might achieve more than they originally expected but only if they considered big changes. 

In this case the initial brief from the client was unclear (my mistake) and I didn't realize I had a room full of Product Management not a mix. Net result some of the original PBI's weren't well tuned and didn't meet their needs. We conducted a Sprint Review and they decided that the Product Backlog wasn't what they needed.

It wasn't a so much the game that led to the change as my misunderstanding of their needs. The game was insightful in helping them realize small changes were going to be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Cheers

Mark