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Game Instructions provided by Tom Seffernick

 

 

 

 

1.       Map with Stops. This visual helps focus the team and makes the instructions easier. I use a power point slide with an US map and dots representing the stop.

2.       A Card for each potential stop alone the way. The cards need to be tailored to the audience. The card contains a stop, duration in days, a dollar value and a short description of any qualitative value that may be achieved by the stop. It is important to prevent a clear recognized path. It is better to create conflict by making the value amounts within a range prevents the game from being a mathematical exercise. It is also important to create more stops than could be physically made.

(Note: Make sure you include a card that tells them the value and duration of driving straight through with out making any other stops i.e. To drive from the east cost to the west coast is 5 days and you get a value of $250MM)

3.       Optional – It may be beneficial to provide them a worksheet where they could tally their stops, duration and value. Another option is to let them order the cards to represent their trip Tik.

1.       Planning a driving trip from East Coast to West Coast (You pick the cities)

2.       Must be in the West Coast city in 14 days to meet with a perspective Customer who has $250MM business that to could be directed to your company. 

3.       If you are a day late, the business is lost. (This gives a fixed Schedule)

4.       There are several possible stops along the way, each stop will cost you time and will provide you value. (This Represents flexible Scope and think of it as your backlog)

5.       Your objective is to create a trip tik that will provide the most value. Be prepared to report back the total duration of your one way trip, the total value received and any problems that you ran into along the way.

(Note – as a facilitator, your answer to any detail question about the rules is “I don’t know what do you think?” After they respond you say “OK just do that.” You want to instill that they are empowered.

I’ve seen it work with a group of product owner, mixed product owners/scrum masters or Technology Managers.

1.       5 Minutes – Form Team, Pass out the Map, and Provide Instructions 

   a.       Teams should be larger than 4 and less than 10

2.       10 minutes – Develop the Trip Tik – Time Boxed 10 minutes only.

   a.       Insert conflict and roadblocks. Here is where you can be creative and tailor this game to meet your specific needs. Below are a few impediments that I have seen work. Use as many as you can in a single game. The only constraint is that one team can not have any impediments.

      i.      Within a minute pull one of the vocal members out one team. While they are away from the team, instruct them to question every decision the team made while they were out. You want them to be annoying.  Then with 3 minutes left in the exercise put them back in the team to play the role you just gave them. Goal create the conflict an uninvolved product owner may create for a project team, or the conflict that 2 product owner may create when they do not agree with priorities or feature functionality.

      ii.      Within 2 minute ask a team to stop. Their Car caught on fire and they had to go home. See how much value they got In the 2 minutes that they had. This helps drive the point that every team should produce some value every sprint, so a decision to cancel a project is not a total write-off. It also drives home the need to do some planning and get started.

      iii.      After 6 minutes instruct a team that their car broke down and they are stuck at a repair shop for 5 day, and need to adjust. This helps demonstrate that impediments pop up that may require prioritization and removing a valuable feature to enable the best possible product at a release date.

      iv.      Plant a command and control participant. Ask them to be extreme instructing the team and picking the approach, and rolling over anyone who has an alternative view. This helps demonstrate the impact a command and control personality has in a project team. 

 

3.       15 minute – Report Back:

   a.       Ask each team to report back on the following questions

      i.      Did you get to the west coast in time

      ii.      What was the total value and how may days did it take and did you get the exercise done early

      iii.      Did anything get in the way, what did you do, and how did it make you feel?

      iv.      Did you get all of the value on the map was that ok?

 

   b.       As a facilitator after each team reports back connect what happened to what happens on a project team. Here are a few examples.

       i.      Incremental Delivery - Agile focus on releasing features often. The team had a major catastrophe (car caught fire) and yet they still got some value for their trip. 

      ii.      Prioritization - In the end there were still stops that we did not make that had value. Teams will celebrate that they got the most value possible given the time they had not disappointment that there was still value on the map. Why can’t those same celebrations happen for projects? Follow up question – how may you have picked up the rest of the value on the map? Possible response – What about the trip home, you still need to drive home could you make some more stop? This can demonstrate the concept of releases.

      iii.      Prioritization - If we think of the Project as the Car, One team had a situation where there was an unforeseen problem that came up (The car broke down and needed to spend 5 days in the shop). I did not hear them arguing with the car, it seems like they quickly recognized unforeseen things happen and shifted focus to how do we adjust to still get the maximum value possible. Have your heard teams and product owner arguing about features that miss a release because of an unforeseen problem?

      iv.      Business Involvement - Think about the team that had the most problem (hopefully this is the team that the vocal team member is pulled out and then goes back in and questions every decision.)  Ask how that felt, point out product owner who are not involved do the same thing for projects.

   c.       If it does not come up earlier, point out that you are driving home, make some of those stops on the way back.