Agile 8 Exercises

[Tina Larzelere]

TheAgile methodology has revolutionised the way teams approach project management by emphasizing the importance of flexibility. This 2022 report states that after adopting Agile, companies have experienced a 60% growth in revenue and profit. Agile teams are reported to be 25% more productive, and 88% of workers believe Agile improves their quality of life.

But is it hard to adopt? When I first studied Agile, my main concern was that it would be complicated. After all, the Agile manifesto comes from Agile software development. Would Agile be like learning a new language? No, thank goodness.

Agile empowers teams to self-organise and collaborate on solutions between themselves and with customers. Agile encourages learning, growth and continuous improvement to deliver value. Teaching the principles is straight-forward, but putting them into practice is the challenge.

Playfulness and gamification are no longer seen as frivolous but as powerful tools to enhance positivity, learning and application, and team collaboration. Positive emotions like excitement, curiosity, and enjoyment have been linked to increased attention and improved learning outcomes. Games are a wonderful way to learn and integrate Agile principles.

Agile games reinforce key principles, such as the importance of collaboration, iterative development, and continuous improvement. By incorporating Agile games into coaching and facilitation sessions, teams can gain a deeper understanding of the methodologies and strengthen their Agile mindset.

Scrum comes from rugby-lingo where teams huddle together to move the ball forward. In the context of projects, the team comes together to move the product forward. Cross-functional teams work in sprints and gather in a daily stand-up meeting to discuss progress, plan work and address any obstacles. Scrum emphasizes flexibility and continuous improvement, enabling teams to deliver value throughout the project.

Work items are represented as cards, and move across the board as they progress through the workflow. Kanban focuses on limiting work in progress (WIP) to improve flow and ensures that teams can complete tasks efficiently.

Step into the busy kitchen of an Italian pizzeria to learn the principles of Agile and Lean in the most delicious way possible! This educational cooking experience introduces the concept of Kanban and can help teams transition from their current process to a more efficient system. By comparing the workflow with and without using the Kanban process, the team can see the benefits of using a visual workflow.

This Pizza Game is a great way for new or established teams to understand the principles of Lean & Agile by diving into Kanban in a quick and fun way that is hard to communicate through words alone. It teaches you how to get from an existing process to a Kanban system, how to visualize the system, and start modifying it.

Success can be measured in different ways. Is it simply about meeting deadlines and staying within budget? Or should customer satisfaction be a key factor as well? This exercise introduces participants to the Agile manifesto and encourages teams to find their own path to success.

Participants are divided into groups and asked to draw upon their project experiences to identify critical elements of successful projects. Each team member signs off on the criteria that they agree with and the lists are compared for patterns.

And hey Presto! Regardless of their Agile experience, teams recognize the importance of customer collaboration, communication, and team dynamics. These criteria align with the fundamental principles of the Agile manifesto, highlighting its intuitive and practical approach!

The daily scrum is a concise, 15-minute exercise that revolves around three fundamental questions: What did I complete yesterday? What will I do today? And what obstacles, if any, are impeding my progress?

For remote teams like ours at SessionLab, a daily scrum can be invaluable. We have an asynchronous daily stand-up on our Slack channel to allow us to stay connected, aligned and support each other. This practice serves as an efficient high-level to-do list, ensuring clarity and team cohesion. It not only saves time but also provides a platform for quick updates across the entire team.

The personal kanban gives teams the autonomy to self-organize and prioritize their own projects. By focusing on a smaller number of tasks at a time, team members can dedicate their attention and effort to a manageable workload. This method not only enhances productivity but also leads to higher-quality outcomes.

Visualising a backlog and accepting it as a normal part of a time-boxed project helps relieve the pressure of trying to address everything. A Kanban board provides a structured system for managing priorities, bringing order and balance that lead to successful results!

Each team is given a copy of the Agile manifesto and the goal is to distill each principle into three words or less. Words should be written on stickers and hung within the circle on a flip chart. The clock is created with each number corresponding to one of the twelve principles.

A proper understanding of Agile Manifesto is VERY important for the introduction of Scrum. The twelve agile principles are less abstract than the four values of the Agile manifesto and can be easily understood.

When teams are aligned and transparent they are far more likely to succeed in their projects. With effective communication and collaboration, groups of any size are able to overcome bottlenecks and avoid siloing.

While playing, teams will organically learn other Agile principles, such as welcoming changing requirements and promoting sustainable development. Use these activities whenever trying to bring a new team up to speed or simply improve how team members work together in an Agile production process.

Discover the power of collaboration in this well-known exercise developed by technologist, designer and facilitator Tom Wujec. The Marshmallow Challenge is a key activity for demonstrating the Agile framework and has been played by hundreds of teams around the world.

The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information. This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team.

One individual may be responsible for ensuring that adjacent bricks have different colors, while another person aims to build the entire structure using only blue bricks! To add an extra layer of challenge, participants are not allowed to communicate verbally during the 20-minute game.

The Ballpoint game, invented by Boris Gloger, is a well-known Agile game that can help a scrum team improve collaboration and deliver effective solutions. Teams pass as many balls as possible through the group in 2 minutes following specific rules. The game is played in five iterations, recording estimates and actual scores.

Teams reflect on how they self-organize and communicate, and perhaps how their estimates become more accurate as they change their process. The lesson is that all processes have a natural velocity, and changing the process is often more effective than working harder or faster.

Open Space Technology (OST) gives Agile teams the opportunity to choose which challenges they need to solve and how. It encourages autonomy and ownership by creating a space for workshop agendas and solutions to emerge. Participants discuss relevant issues, follow their passions, and take action together.

Open Space makes it possible to include everybody in constructing agendas and addressing issues that are important to them. Having co-created the agenda and free to follow their passion, people will take responsibility very quickly for solving problems and moving into action. Letting go of central control (i.e., the agenda and assignments) and putting it in the hands of all the participants generates commitment, action, innovation, and follow-through. You can use Open Space with groups as large as a couple of thousand people!

Agile values adaptability and flexibility to respond to changing requirements, customer feedback and market conditions. Through the processes of prioritisation, timeboxing and iterative development, every team member can deliver high-quality results and navigate any changes to a project. Sounds ideal, right?

Prioritization helps teams focus on what matters most. By effectively allocating time and resources teams can focus on high-importance items. Agile teams can quickly deliver valuable increments of work and meet customer needs.

A pre-project discussion ensures that only projects that align with both business and solution requirements are started. But what about ongoing projects? Ecocycle Planning enables teams to collaborate, organize and prioritize each project.

What I find appealing about the exercise is its emphasis on transparency throughout the entire organization. Everyone gains a holistic view of both the larger organizational landscape and its individual projects.

This visibility enables teams to see both the broader context and the specific details of ongoing projects. The result is a shared understanding that facilitates better decision-making!

The power of timeboxing is demonstrated in the Paper Plane Game. The goal is to build quality paper planes that fly 30 meters in 3 minutes. Each iteration lasts 9 minutes: 3 for planning, 3 minutes to build and test, and 3 minutes to review. Only planes that fly 30 metres count as successful constructions.

Teams then propose improvements during retrospectives. The game encourages reflection and prompts discussions on design decisions and waste reduction for better performance!

The matrix design invites participants to map possible actions based on the effort required and the potential impact. By categorizing ideas along these lines, teams are obliged to balance and evaluate actions before committing to them.

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