About 5 minutes per round. I typically like to run three or four rounds depending upon how quickly my class “gets it”.

Ingredients:

• Two people willing to play
• (Optional) Play money

Recipe:

I first was exposed to this game at a Toastmaster meeting. The facilitator only carried the example to the first round and made the point of cooperation. I’ve enhanced the game to make points about iteration retrospectives, specialization, and scaling.

The central activity in this exercise is a game of “Thumb Wars”. This is the same game you played as a child, in which the object is to pin your opponent (partner’s) thumb to their fist.

YouTube has many videos of this activity. A good example can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l649Ftx-0hM

When you run the game, some groups will figure out the messaging and techniques more quickly than others. Sometimes they never get it and you may have to walk them through it. Either way, it is very instructional and illustrates many lean and agile values.

GamePlay:

Demonstration: Ask the audience if they know how to play thumb wars. This question leads individuals to fond memories, anticipation and excitement. Then invite a member of the class to the front and demonstrate the game.
Ask people in class to pair off and tell them you will pay the person with the most wins a dollar for each win. (I have play money for this purpose)
Instruct that they will have a minute to play the game. Tell them that the object of the exercise is to “maximize gain”. Give them the “ready, set … go” and time them for about a minute.
Round 1 (Competition): In the first round of this game, the class typically thumbs it out. In round one, it is normal that I “pay out” four to six dollars to the person with the most wins. To conclude the round, I revisit the goal of maximizing gain, then ask players to discuss this with their partner for a while, then give them the “ready, set … go”.
Round 2 (Cooperation): Round two is usually characterized by a couple agreeing to cooperate and exchange wins. This works just like it sounds. Person A lets Person B win, then the reverse, and so on for the minute. I generally pay out about $30 per person to the winning team because, since they alternate, they tie in wins. The debrief includes a discussion about the value of cooperation over competition when people share the same goal. I once again remind the team that the goal is to “maximize gain”, give them another minute to discuss it and then “ready, set … go”
Round 3 (Specialization): Some members of the class will realize that an individual does not have to “win” to gain. The two people enter into a partnership in which Person A passively lays their thumb down onto their fist and Person B repeatedly taps it. I usually pay out about $120 to $180 to person A at the end of this round and they split the money per agreement. (if people can actually count that fast). The debrief discussion focuses on the value of role specialization and creativity in achieving gain. Sometimes we give the discussion a “lean” twist and talk about the waste associated with exchanging thumb positions in Round 2. We discuss again the goal of maximizing gain, do a brief retrospective, then “ready, set, … go”.
Round 4 (Scaling): Once again, some members of the class will realize that the instructions were “a dollar per pin” and “maximize gain”. Nothing was said about the number of playing fields. So some teams will realize that they can apply the knowledge gained from round 3 with both hands. Person A taps the thumb of person B with both their right and left thumbs and again as fast as possible, person A gets paid, then they split the money. But, by this time in the game, people cannot count the number of “wins”, so we give up on money. But everyone understands that the number is nearing $200 – $300 per person.

After I’ve debriefed Round 4, then we have a discussion of the value of retrospectives in increasing gain from about $6 to about $300.

Learning Points:

• Collaboration and cooperation maximizes gain over competition in groups with shared goals. (Competitive situations exist between functional groups in the waterfall process)
• Process retrospectives pay big dividends
• There are many different ways to improve a process. Creativity can lead to more efficient ways to cooperate, specialize and scale. If you can achieve such fantastic results ($6 -> $300) with this silly game, think what you can do with a complex software development project.
• This whole game, from end to end, can be presented as an exercise in value stream mapping and waste elimination if the facilitator wishes to take that approach.

This post was submitted by skillen.

15 minutes

Ingredients:

• Copies of the twelve principles of agile software (http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html)
• White-boards and/or flip-charts
• Markers

Recipe:
This is an exercise that we came up with to better communicate the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto. In their existing form, it is challenging for people to read and understand each principle and, just as importantly, to easily refer to them later.

• Divide participants in to groups, each with a white-board or flip-chart and markers.
• Have the teams write down the numbers 1 through 12.
• Challenge each team to, within a 15 minute time-box, come up with three words maximum that effectively capture each of the twelve principles.
• To avoid ‘analysis paralysis’, make sure to give the teams time updates throughout (e.g. 10, 5, 2, 1 minute warnings). You will find that teams will speed up towards the end.
• When time is up, go through each principle and discuss which are the most important words. Sometimes I like to ask people what their most and least favorite principles are.
• Post the condensed principles somewhere visible, so as to make it a regular talking point.

Here is an example:

1. Produce Value Early
2. Welcome Change
3. Iterative Delivery
4. Daily Business Collaboration
5. Trust Motivated Team
6. Face to Face
7. Working Software
8. Sustainable Pace
9. Technical Excellence
10. K.I.S.S.
11. Self-Organize
12. Reflect and Adjust

Learning Points:

• This is an effective way of capturing each principle in a much more concise and memorable way.
• Probably the most valuable part of this exercise, is in the discussion that the teams have when trying to come up with the words. They need to first understand the principle before breaking it down.
• Teams can establish a collective understanding and ownership of each principle.
• This also makes for a good review exercise in a classroom environment.

This post was submitted by Don McGreal.

• Sizing board (a whiteboard or flip-chart or the like; divided into 5 columns: XS, S, M, L, XL)
• Timer
• A set of prepared stories
• A set of 5 X 3 cards
• Tape for attaching the cards to the board

Recipe:

Have the team stand-up in a half circle facing their sizing board.

Shuffle a deck of story cards and place them face down on a table in front of the sizing board. Place a timer next to the cards.

The game begins when the facilitator starts the timer, which is the signal for the first member to perform the following steps:

• pick the top card off the deck
• attach a piece of tape to the card
• read the story on the card out loud
• assigns the card to one of the five columns on the board (XS, S, M, L. XL)
• provide a reason to the group
• start the timer for the next player

It is important assigning the card to one of the five columns has to be the player’s own decision, without any external interference. This is why the player should provide the reason for his or her decision after the card has been assigned. If the player does not assign the card within one minute, the card will be assigned to the column in the middle. The player then restarts the timer for the next player.

After sizing the card, the player presents his or her reason. The reason may be based on expert knowledge, from past experiences, or observations from other projects. It is essential that the rest of the team observes and listens carefully to understand the overall context and development of the board. All other team members are therefore silent without discussions or judgment.

After a few rounds, there should be enough cards on the board to give the team members the option to, on their turn, move an existing card on the board into a different column instead of picking a new card from the deck. As before, the player reads the story out loud followed by a reason which supports the decision to re-size.
Once all user story cards are on the board and sized, each team member, on their turn, can either continue moving cards between columns or simply “pass” if they are satisfied with the current results. If a player does not make a decision within the one-minute time-limit, it will be interpreted as a “pass”.

The game ends when the pile of story cards is gone and every member of the team signals “pass”.

Challenges:
The biggest challenge in the beginning is the lack of a reference story – the Chihuahua (see Doggy Planning). Because no card has been assigned yet, the first player will not have something to compare his or her story to. And since the cards will be shuffled, we won’t know if the first stories are really small, medium, or large until we uncover more stories. This is OK and and important lesson of the game. Every player will have the opportunity to change their mind in future rounds, so the important thing is to just get started. Remember, the game does not stop until all players signal “pass”.

It is quite typical that two or more players disagree about a few assignments, and the card may end up endlessly moving up and down the board. If this happens, just take the card and place it on the bottom of the deck. That way, the sizing can continue and the card should have more context after all the other cards have been sized.

Learning Points:

• Group user stories according to their relative size/effort
• Reach a democratic consensus quickly
• Ensure that each team member has a say
• Learn how user stories are captured
• Actively collaborate in a fun way

Variations

• Play with 3 (S,M.L) columns instead of 5 (XS, S, M, L. XL)
• Begin with 3 columns until the team requests more granularity, then the moderator adds additional columns
• Assign the Fibonacci sequence to the columns (1,2,3,5,8)

CREDIT: Jochen Krebs

This post was submitted by Don McGreal.

Ingredients:

• A good-sized audience – 10 or more (the bigger the better)
• Pens & paper for all

Recipe:

It is best to sneak this exercise in when it is least expected.
Start by selecting something in the room that is not easily counted or estimated. Take the time to write the exact number down and hide it from the audience.
Then, have each individual quickly and privately write down their own estimate.
Gather all of the estimates and calculate the average.
Cross your fingers and unveil the number that you wrote down earlier. It should be relatively close to the group average.

I have done similar exercises about a dozen or so times and the results are usually spot on. However, there is always a chance that the results could be off, so always make sure to start by announcing that you want to perform an experiment together. Participants will understand if the results are not perfect.

Some things you can use to estimate:

• Your weight – although people tend to be generous and the estimates are usually low.
• Number of books available on Amazon.com
• Number of words on a page – I’ve had the most success with this one. In a class environment, I’ll use the lab write-up and have the students write their estimate on the back.
• Number of steps it takes to walk from one side of the room to the other – this one is fun, but you could get accused of rigging the outcome.
• Balloons in the room – only works if you played the 99 Test Balloons game earlier.
• Please leave a comment to share some of your ideas and experiences.

Other helpful hints:

• To keep things quick, open a spread sheet to type in everybody’s estimate as they show them to you. This also makes it easy to calculate the average in front of everybody.
• Analyze the data with the class. You will likely get a very wide variance. I often find that no one individual estimate is as close as the average. This speaks to the true wisdom of the crowd and of the importance of diversity.
• To make it even more interesting, give a prize to whomever had the most accurate estimate.

Learning Points:

• The accuracy of the group estimate is usually stronger than any one individual’s.
• The larger and more diverse the crowd is, the better the estimate.
• Agile embraces this principle by involving the whole team in estimating and planning and by encouraging the creation of cross-functional teams.

This post was submitted by Don McGreal.

Ingredients:

• Whiteboards and/or flip-charts
• Markers

Recipe:

Begin by defining what success on a software development project means. Is it only about being on time and on budget? What about customer satisfaction?
Divide the participants in to groups and ask them to, based on their project experiences, come up with a list of criteria that they have noticed as critical elements on successful projects.
Ask them to reach a consensus within their team and have each member sign off on the criteria they agree with.
Look for patterns between each team’s list and then discuss. Compare each teams list with the list that the 17 signatories of the agile manifesto came up with.
You will be surprised at the results, regardless of the participants experience with agile. You will rarely see any team come up with prescriptive practices and I have yet to come across a list that did not include customer collaboration, communication, and team dynamics.

Learning Points:

• The agile manifesto is a set of factors that are considered common on successful projects.
• These successful factors are not entirely new to our industry.
• The agile manifesto does not prescribe specific practices, reaching a wide consensus on these would be very hard.

This post was submitted by Don McGreal.

Ingredients:

• Whiteboards and/or flip-charts
• Markers

Directions:

Divide the participants in to groups and ask them to graphically represent their current development process. Have them think about roles, artifacts produced, and challenges. Invite them to be creative and to not worry about using any formal notation (UML, Gantt Charts, RUP, etc.). Ask them not to use people’s names, or to criticize personalities.

Each team will then then present their creation to the whole group.

Learning Points:

• This is an interesting and fun way for a facilitator to gain visibility in to what is working and what the challenges are in an organization’s current process.

• This exercise also creates more transparency within a team, by giving people a chance to see how others characterize the process.

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Index cards, about ten per team
• Pens

Directions:

Create teams of story writers of 4 or more. Half the teams sit together, the other half must sit at different tables.

The goal is to write a coherent story with six paragraphs that begin with….

1. It was a bright and sunny day in ? ….
2. Finally, John was able to subdue the ? ….
3. The crash left them disoriented and their apples were strewn across the ? ….
4. Somehow the bunny was now on top of the ? ….
5. Alice had been frightened by the barking but found the path back to ? ….
6. The clowns returned and everyone was relieved to see Harry waiting with the bucket of chicken. …

The team has 8 minutes to write their story and then present to the room.

Learning Points:

• Co-location promotes better communication and collaboration creating better products and more cohesive solutions.

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Stop Watch

Directions:

Round one
Each person pairs off with another, preferably someone they do not know.
Each pair then chooses who will be the manager and who will be the worker.
The manager will direct the worker to walk 60 normal paces within two minutes using only the following 6 commands: Go, Stop, Left, Right, Faster, Slower.
After two minutes are up, ask for a show of hands for how many completed the 60 paces.

Round two
There are no managers or workers. Each individual can direct themselves. Again, the goal is to walk 60 paces in two minutes. After two minutes are up, ask for a show of hands for how many completed the 60 paces.

Learning Points:

• Comparison between command and control and self organizing teams and the underlying efficiency of the latter.

CREDIT: Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Four unique paper airplane instructions, one set for each team.
• A big stack of standard size white papers and a smaller stack of yellow papers.

Directions:

In teams of 4 or more, have participants create as many paper airplanes as possible. When thrown from behind a table at one end of the room, airplanes must cross the room and touch the opposite wall.
The facilitator, playing the role of the customer, can reject any planes that do not meet their quality standards.
Track the number of planes created/approved, time to get the first plane approved, time to absorb a new team member, time to incorporate a new requirement (first yellow plane).

First pass: Self organizing and cross functional teams.
No roles or responsibilities. No prep time. Provide each team one paper airplane instruction, the same for all teams. Go!

Second pass: command and control with specialists.
Create new teams.
Team members may only perform one of the following functions:

• Folder: Can fold paper so that the surfaces remain in contact.
• Bender: Can bend the paper into a new angle, so long as the surfaces are not touching (this would be the job of the Folder).
• Pilot: May do final adjustments to elevators.

A team member may change their role; however they must leave for 1 minute to attend training. A Project Manager is in charge of overall quality. They must establish the steps and tasks for each team member. Give the team 5 minutes to prepare their process. Go!

Run exercise for 5-10 minutes for each pass. After two-four minutes, swap one team member from each team.
After three – six minutes, put in a special order for yellow planes. Offer bonus of ten points per yellow plane.

Learning Points:

• Self organizing and cross functional teams are better able to adapt to changes in than those driven by command and control with specialists.
• In addition, they are faster at getting to market and more productive.

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Football (or some other kind of ball)

Directions:

In order to enforce the rules of the daily stand-up meeting and to keep it more entertaining, a football can be used. Only those holding the football can speak. Once they have completed answering their questions, they can throw the football to another team member who has not yet spoken. This continues until all members have spoken. It is up to each individual to remember who has not spoken. You can implement penalties for violations of the rules (scoreboard, $1 to the happy hour or lunch fund, etc.)

Learning Points:

• Tracking who has not yet spoken and the expectation of receiving the football keeps everybody alert, involved, and entertained.
• Only one member speaks at a time.

Posted by Don McGreal