SPA Conference session: Agile 1's game | |||
| One-line description: | Using dice to simulate agile development | ||
| Session format: | Simulation 75 minutes [read about the different session types] | ||
| Abstract: | The agile manifesto lists some values. Agile methods often give you rules and guidelines. Understanding 'why' some recommendations are useful is often skipped. The 1's game simulates swarming, story decomposition and WIP limits to give teams a visceral understanding of why some counter-intuitive practices actually lead to more regular delivery of value for the customer. Often called the 'Kanban 1's game' I've found that this game is very useful for teams trying to get an understanding of basic agile practices, whether they're going to use Kanban or not. We'll spend a lot of time in this session playing, which is fun, but there is a serious point too. I'd like input from attendees about the format of the game, the timing and style of rule introduction and the rule content itself. It would be great if there are suggestions for new variants that could simulate other development practices too. By the end of the session, delegates will be in a position to run the game themselves. | ||
| Audience background: | All | ||
| Benefits of participating: | Learn a new tool to help demonstrate some agile principles. Have fun. Contribute to the development of a popular training tool. | ||
| Materials provided: | Dice, index cards | ||
| Process: | The attendants will separate into groups of 4-6 people, that represent agile teams. We'll work in iterations of 10 days and after each iteration we'll have one giant 'retrospective' for everybody. We start off with the very simplest rules. After the first iteration I'll introduce a rule that simulates swarming. Then later a rule that simulates the effort of story decomposition. In each retrospective we'll discuss any insights that the simulation has stimulated. There maybe suggestions about how to tweak the rules to demonstrate agile working more effectively. Maybe new rules will be proposed. If we have time we can trial these. Game play: each team member has 6 normal dice. Each team has a stack of "story cards" of random sizes (2-12) points. Each "day" every team member rolls all 6 dice - for each 1 rolled, 1 story point of work is done on a story that the team member is working on. When all story points have been done, the story moves to the next team member who has to do them all again. When all team members have completed the story, the story is "done" and that number of points has been delivered. | ||
| Detailed timetable: | 0-0.05 Introduction 0.05-0.15 Iteration 1 (basic rules) 0.15-0.20 Retro 1 0.20-0.30 Iteration 2 (swarming) 0.30-0.35 Retro 2 0.35-0.45 Iteration 3 (decomposition) 0.45-0.55 Retro 3 (suggestions & voting) 0.55-0.65 Iteration 4 (new/modified rules) 0.65-0.75 Retro 4 & write up. | ||
| Outputs: | Our experience with the game. Any new of modified rules that we discover/invent. | ||
| History: | This game was developed by Jon Jagger. I have run this game as part of many training courses. I also ran it informally at XP2013 in Wien. | ||
| Presenters | |||
| 1. Seb Rose Claysnow Limited |
2. | 3. | |