• 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.

20-40 mins

Ingredients:

• Paper, pens, whiteboard and markers

Recipe:

Briefly review the four value statements from the Agile Manifesto.

One at a time for each statment ask the group to write down an example (60 -90 seconds). In turn have everyone read their example aloud. Ask the group to choose the example they like best, write it on the board (two is fine if there is a split or close call).  

Learning Points:

• This Agile Game helps to prompt and establish an understanding how the values of Agile will and should  impact a particular group or organization. The exercise is a complement to describing the general meaning and intent of these values which is still an important conversation. The intent intent here is to create understanding and self discovery for the participants in their environment.
• Begins the establishment of a new set of norms since these are examples of behaviour that the team has defined.
• For a coach new to an organization this can also help you better understand the challenges a team and organization will face culturally and systemically.

Posted by Mike McCullough

Ingredients:

• Whiteboards
• Markers
• Set of four coloured sticky notes for each player

Recipe:

Begin by reviewing the four value statements from the Agile Manifesto.  Draw on the whiteboard a matrix of complexity on the vertical axis  and impact on the horizontal axis with a scale of low, medium and high. Draw out all 9 resulting boxes of the matrix. 

Assign a colour (one of the four sticky note colours) to each of the four statements in the manifesto.

Ask all particpants to place each of their four stickies into the appropriate place on the matrix based on their assessment of the impact and compexity the value statement it represents.

Encourage discussion amongst players while placing their sticky notes.

Once completed review what the group has assessed as the impact and challenge of adopting the value system implied by the Agile Manifesto 

Learning Points:

• Reinforces and drives meaningful discussion about the Values and Principles of Agile
• Facilitates the discussion about what Agile means to the team and organization.
• Set’s the stage for understanding the purpose and intent of Agile practices and techniques.

Posted by Mike McCullough

Ingredients:

• People and space
• 1 stop watch
• Optionally, something to record the audio with.

Directions:

Have the team sit/stand in a circle. You want to get a story of the last sprint that is told by the entire team. You start by saying ‘Once upon a time , we had a X (insert sprint length here!) week sprint…’. Then, the next person to your left adds to your sentence and this carries on until the last person has spoken or if the story is developing in an interesting direction, until all the points appear to have been made and there is nothing of value coming through. You might want to strictly enforce the time limit for a large team.

After the retrospective , you could run the game again to tell the story of the next sprint, and this should galvanise the improvements that will take place and nicely summarise the lessons learnt and help the team visualise how the next sprint could be better. This game helps to create an ongoing shared goal and represents an oral history of the software process.

Learning Points:

• Discover a consensus view of the success/failures from the last sprint.
• Empower everyone to add value to a collective goal through participation.
• Exercise the ‘responding to change’ learning point from the word-at-a-time letter game.

CREDIT: Mike Sutton

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Stop Watch

Directions:

In groups of two taking turns:

One person speaks, the other listens. The speaker picks a topic of personal interest, perhaps a problem they have been working on. The speaker talks for five to seven minutes while the listener says nothing. They may nod or smile or perform other gestures.

Have a discussion. how did it feel to just listen? How often were we thinking of what we wanted to speak about?

Learning Points:

• Most conflict and miscommunication is due to a lack of listening. It is difficult for many of us to turn our internal monologue and listen to other speak. If we do, the rewards are great.

CREDIT: Ross Martin & Lynn Harrison, Black Tusk Leadership

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• 1 set of planning poker cards per participant.
• http://www.crisp.se/planningpoker/

Directions:

Participants in an estimation meeting are each given a set of cards. Each card contains an estimate. Units used vary, they can be days, ideal days, story points, etc. The cards are numbered to account for the fact that the longer an estimate is, the more uncertainty it contains (e.g 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40). When an item (feature, task, etc.) is presented, without mentioning numbers, a discussion takes place to clarify assumptions and risks.
Each participant then lays a card face down representing their estimate. Simultaneously, the cards are turned over. If all estimates are relatively close, then there is no more discussion needed, the estimate is recorded and the group moves on to the next item. If some participants had high or low estimates, then they are given a chance to justify their estimate as they may have been thinking of something others were not aware of. Repeat the estimation process until a consensus is reached.

Learning Points:

• The wisdom of crowds is more accurate than individual estimates.
• Using the cards avoids the influence of others while estimating.
• It encourages all team members to participate
• Discourages the talkative members from dominating (too soon anyway).

CREDIT: James Grenning

Posted by Mike

Ingredients:

• Stop Watch

Directions:

Have participants pair up and sit side by side so they’re both facing the same direction. Decide who will be partner A and who will be partner B.

Tell them to write a letter together, one word at a time. Partner A starts with the word “Dear.” Partner B follows with the name of the recipient.” Continue until they have completed writing the letter to the recipient. If they finish the first letter before you call time, have them start another one and continue until notified to stop.

Learning Points:

• Agile development embraces uncertainty and the unknown. The emotional experience of not knowing what is next is intended to quickly emulate the feeling and to setup a discussion about it.

CREDIT: Agile Educator’s Toolkit (v1.7), Kert D. Peterson, Enterprise Agile Group, LLC

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