Best Games for a one hour introduction to Agile?

[Mark Levison]

I'm preparing an "Introduction to Agile" session for Agile Tour Toronto and when I had originally proposed it, I had imagined the "Greeting card" game (effectively a variant of the airplane factory). Along with illustrating the usual ideas, I was hoping that we could discover iterative work creates room for process improvement. I had imagined:

• a very brief introduction to agile in the form of a story (probably what Agile Dinner making for a large crowd would be)
• discussion
• Greeting Card Game Rnd I
• discussion
• Greeting Card Game Rnd 2
• discussion

As you can imagine I had expected this would take the better part of 90 minutes. However the organizers granted me 60 minutes (that's fine) and so now I have to rethink my game plan.

Do you have suggestions for games that help demonstrate some key agile features, which we can play and debrief at least two rounds in 60 minutes?

Cheers
Mark Levison

		Mark Levison | Agile Pain Relief Consulting | Agile Editor @ InfoQ Blog | Twitter | Office: (613) 862-2538 Recent Entries: Self Inflicted Agile Injuries, Why use an Agile Coach

[Lisa Crispin]

The old XP game could be done in 60 minutes, I liked it but maybe it seems too old-skool nowadays.

The drawing game that was suggested to me on this list would work too, it goes really fast, and people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
-- Lisa

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Lisa Crispin
Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
Contributor to _Beautiful Testing_ (O'Reilly 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
@lisacrispin on Twitter

[Brian Bozzuto]

Depending on how in-depth you go, and how you debrief it, I think the
"Marshmallow Challenge" may be a great exercise to do. (okay, I
promise that's the last time I'll recommend it within this group for
at least 1 month)

On Sep 20, 3:59 pm, Lisa Crispin <lisa.cris...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The old XP game could be done in 60 minutes, I liked it but maybe it seems
> too old-skool nowadays.
>
> The drawing game that was suggested to me on this list would work too, it
> goes really fast, and people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
> -- Lisa
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 1:13 PM, Mark Levison <m...@mlevison.com> wrote:
> > I'm preparing an "Introduction to Agile" session for Agile Tour Toronto and
> > when I had originally proposed it, I had imagined the "Greeting card" game
> > (effectively a variant of the airplane factory). Along with illustrating the
> > usual ideas, I was hoping that we could discover iterative work creates room
> > for process improvement. I had imagined:
>

> >    - a very brief introduction to agile in the form of a story (probably

> >    what Agile Dinner making for a large crowd would be)

> >    - discussion
> >    - Greeting Card Game Rnd I
> >    - discussion
> >    - Greeting Card Game Rnd 2
> >    - discussion

>
> > As you can imagine I had expected this would take the better part of 90
> > minutes. However the organizers granted me 60 minutes (that's fine) and so
> > now I have to rethink my game plan.
>
> > Do you have suggestions for games that help demonstrate some key agile
> > features, which we can play and debrief at least two rounds in 60 minutes?
>
> > Cheers
> > Mark Levison
>

> >  *Mark Levison* | Agile Pain Relief Consulting<http://agilepainrelief.com/>| Agile
> > Editor @ InfoQ <http://www.infoq.com/about.jsp>
> > Blog <http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/> | Twitter<http://twitter.com/mlevison>| Office: (613) 862-2538
> > Recent Entries: Self Inflicted Agile Injuries<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/12/self-inflicted-agile-injuri...>,
> > Why use an Agile Coach<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/11/why-use-an-agile-coach.html>

>
> >  --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "AgileGames" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to agile...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

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> > .

[Mark Levison]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Brian Bozzuto <brian....@gmail.com> wrote:

Depending on how in-depth you go, and how you debrief it, I think the
"Marshmallow Challenge" may be a great exercise to do. (okay, I
promise that's the last time I'll recommend it within this group for
at least 1 month)

I love the marshmallow game but not sure how to make it illustrate the basics of Agile/Scrum.

Forgive my brain failing me write this second.

Cheers
Mark

[Mark Levison]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Lisa Crispin <lisa.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

The old XP game could be done in 60 minutes, I liked it but maybe it seems too old-skool nowadays.

Trust me "old school" doesn't matter. I've a few questions to help clarify and understand.
- Assuming your audience knows nothing about Agile how much intro time do you need to get the basics described
- With a good debrief how long does the game take?
- Does the game scale well for 50-75 people?

The drawing game that was suggested to me on this list would work too, it goes really fast, and people seem to have a lot of fun with it.

Very interesting. I'd never thought of that.

Cheers
Mark

[Lisa Crispin]

Gosh, I haven't done the XP game for so long I'm not sure I remember - and my notes from it are on my old laptop that probably won't even boot up.

As I recall, the main thing in the intro was to explain the rules and what they had to "build" - I would have them draw whatever, I tried to pick something that was fun and relevant to where they are. In Raleigh, where basketball is big, I had them design a machine that would pick up basketballs from the court after practice. The classic thing to do was the coffee machine.

So to the best of my memory (which isn't good) it took about 10 minutes to introduce, then I did 10 minute iterations with a 5 minute retro. I added a tester role to the original instructions (which only had customer and programmer). I did a quick debrief after the first retro, maybe 5 minutes, to hopefully elicit suggestions of having the testers and customers work more closely with the programmers, and a longer debrief at the end.

If I were going to do it with 50 or more people, though, I'd want someone else to help go around and answer questions as the teams do the iterations.

I should track down my notes on this. It got hard to ever find an audience who didn't know the basics of agile so I stopped doing it.

I do think the drawing game might be simpler and more fun - people pair up so it's quicker than dividing everyone into groups. The trick is to be clear with the instructions and make sure everyone knows the rules. That would probably scale better for a larger group.
-- Lisa

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[Matteo Vaccari]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 8:57 PM, Mark Levison <ma...@mlevison.com> wrote:

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Lisa Crispin <lisa.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

The old XP game could be done in 60 minutes, I liked it but maybe it seems too old-skool nowadays.

Trust me "old school" doesn't matter. I've a few questions to help clarify and understand.
- Assuming your audience knows nothing about Agile how much intro time do you need to get the basics described
- With a good debrief how long does the game take?
- Does the game scale well for 50-75 people?

I led many XP Game sessions for classes of up to 25 people.  That lasted about 2.5 hours, and came on the afternoon of a training day where the morning was spent explaining and discussing Scrum and XP.  I don't know how it would work with 50 people or more.  You should form teams of max 7 people, and one of the 7 should be the "coach" and know the game.  If I were you, I would prepare the session by running a training session with the people that will be coaches; with so many participants it's important to have "assistants" who help you run the game smoothly.

Also you should think how to run the discussion; it's difficult to coordinate discussion with so many people.  Perhaps the fishbowl format may help.

Matteo

[David Koontz]

The Golden Gates Paper Bridge Group Initiative

Teams are given paper sheets, paper clips and have to build a bridge
over a "river".

I've used this initiative to discuss team work, leadership,
followership, understanding the client and may other issues that arise
during the debriefing.

In one training at SolutionsIQ the teams were given the requirements
(build a bridge of 12" span - but when the customer acceptance was
done the boat that had to pass under the bridge had towers and antenna
that exceeded the specification height. The teams had to negotiate
with the Product Owner on the physical acceptance test - a toy boat
passing under the bridge.

Details on the initiative are at:
http://agilecomplexificationinverter.blogspot.com/2010/09/golden-gates-paper-bridge-group.html

David

On Sep 20, 1:13 pm, Mark Levison <m...@mlevison.com> wrote:
> I'm preparing an "Introduction to Agile" session for Agile Tour Toronto and
> when I had originally proposed it, I had imagined the "Greeting card" game
> (effectively a variant of the airplane factory). Along with illustrating the
> usual ideas, I was hoping that we could discover iterative work creates room
> for process improvement. I had imagined:
>

>    - a very brief introduction to agile in the form of a story (probably

>    what Agile Dinner making for a large crowd would be)

>    - discussion
>    - Greeting Card Game Rnd I
>    - discussion
>    - Greeting Card Game Rnd 2
>    - discussion

>
> As you can imagine I had expected this would take the better part of 90
> minutes. However the organizers granted me 60 minutes (that's fine) and so
> now I have to rethink my game plan.
>
> Do you have suggestions for games that help demonstrate some key agile
> features, which we can play and debrief at least two rounds in 60 minutes?
>
> Cheers
> Mark Levison
>

>  *Mark Levison* | Agile Pain Relief Consulting
> <http://agilepainrelief.com/>| Agile
> Editor @ InfoQ <http://www.infoq.com/about.jsp>
> Blog <http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/> |

> Twitter<http://twitter.com/mlevison>| Office: (613) 862-2538

> Recent Entries: Self Inflicted Agile

> Injuries<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/12/self-inflicted-agile-injuri...>,
> Why use an Agile
> Coach<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/11/why-use-an-agile-coach.html>

[Gerry Kirk]

Mark, if you've only got one hour and that's it, sometimes "less is more".

The ball point game I find is a great intro. Simple format, limited rules and roles, gets people active immediately. Learn how to self-organize, continuous improvement, deal with assumptions, taking on of risk (at least with Lyssa Adkin's version where team is offered a new more profitable "product" of markers with no caps on them that have to be flipped between people), among other things.

We used it on Friday at the start of a one day Scrum 101 session. Didn't say anything about Scrum until after the game was done.

- Gerry

> Coach<http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2009/11/why-use-an-agile-coach.html>

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[Michael Sahota]

Mark, as someone on the program committee for Agile Tour Toronto, we selected your session to be a 1 hour intro to Agile. I know you asked for 1.5hrs but that didn't fit.

We knew that this meant to provide a good introduction for people new to Agile, this may mean doing more traditional case study type stuff with photos and diagrams (and yes, PowerPoint is good for this).

At DeepAgile earlier this year, one learning (as I recall) was that in 1 hour, attempting to do 60 min scrum game is too difficult since people don't know enough. 

For a short game (say 15 min), you could do Collaborative Origami to demonstrate collaboration aspect - http://blog.tastycupcakes.com/2009/06/collaborative-origami/

[Alan Dayley]

I recently did a four-hour workshop Introduction to Agile and Scrum.  The first two hours were focused on the Agile Manifesto.  What I did could probably be compressed into an hour, but that is not much time.

Here is what we did for the Agile Part.

- Divide the class into groups of 6 people, give or take.

- Give each group an easel sheet and have them do Presto Manifesto (http://blog.tastycupcakes.com/2009/06/presto-manifesto/)

- Hang the produced manifestos on the wall.

- Give each individual a sticky note pad.

- Present the Agile Manifesto.

- Present each of the 12 principles.

- As the discussion of each principle ends, have the class members write two words on a sticky note that summarize that principle.

- At the end of the principles each attendee should have twelve sticky notes, each with two words on them.

- Now have the attendees post their notes to the the manifestos they created to see what matches.

- Stickies that don't fit their own manifesto are posted on the wall beside the sheet.

- Discuss and contrast the same and different stickies vs. the team created manifestos.

One hour seems two short for this but one could try.  Helps to keep the class engaged and thinking about the meaning behind the manifesto in direct contrast with their own experience.

Alan

[Mark Levison]

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Michael Sahota <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

Mark, as someone on the program committee for Agile Tour Toronto, we selected your session to be a 1 hour intro to Agile. I know you asked for 1.5hrs but that didn't fit.

We knew that this meant to provide a good introduction for people new to Agile, this may mean doing more traditional case study type stuff with photos and diagrams (and yes, PowerPoint is good for this).

Don't worry there will be a short intro. 

At DeepAgile earlier this year, one learning (as I recall) was that in 1 hour, attempting to do 60 min scrum game is too difficult since people don't know enough. 

I understand I suspect the limit is about 20-25 minutes of game play. At this stage I'm leaning to a single sprint/iteration simulation. Perhaps Alexi's lego game (thanks to Gerry for pointing this out), cut down to size. I might even give the groups a head start by building something for them to start.

I will also provide them several handouts with key bits of information to play the game and a good outline of Scrum as a take away.

Cheers

Mark - who has way over thought this whole exercise

[Don McGreal]

Mark,

Given your specific circumstances, another option (although not as
'gamey') is Presto Manifesto:
http://blog.tastycupcakes.com/2009/06/presto-manifesto/

It gets people up and talking right off the bat, before ever
mentioning the word agile. I love it because it gives participants
ownership in the manifesto and is a powerful way to communicate the
whole values/principles vs practices deal.

Don

On Sep 27, 9:56 am, Mark Levison <m...@mlevison.com> wrote:

[Tim Yevgrashyn]

Hi Mark,

Under your circumstances I could recommend you the exercise for gaining common understanding of concepts and principles called "Being Agile". I found the description here http://www.slideshare.net/rpannone/being-agile-exercise-for-gaining-a-common-team-understanding-and-consensus

I used it a couple of times instead of boring presentation. It setup the environment for the facilitated discussion and puts participants to the same context.

Very much like "Presto manifestion" and in the same time more structured and more visual analogy.

WBR,

Tim Yevgrashyn,

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