Timing: 

20 minutes to prepare plus 30 minutes for Standard version, or 75 to 90 minutes for Extended Version

Overview:

Small teams collaborate to order a backlog with a specific business goal in mind. Once the team has produced their backlog, they review the output of another team and discuss the differences. Everyone participates and discussion plays a key part in the game. Participant’s eyes are often opened to the complexity of backlog prioritisation. The game has been designed for all staff, not just Product Owners. The Extended Version of the game ramps up the challenge. It is aimed at Product Owners, yet suitable for anyone with a little more time to spare

Learning Points:

  • Experience the challenges of prioritising and ordering a backlog.
  • Understand how an agile team can help their Product Owner by making the backlog items easier to compare.
  • The Extended Version also adds the experience of how business goals impact your approach to prioritisation.
Example of resulting backlog:

Link to Game: Instructions (PDF)

7 thoughts on “Weekend Escape an agile backlog management game

  1. Dear Andrew, the instructions pdf is not available. Would you please check it? We would like to know the details a lot.

    1. HI Miklos, the PDF is stored on my google drive and set to available to view and download to anyone on the web with the link. Is your site/server blocking your access to google drive?

  2. I plan on using this game in an upcoming class and just need to get some more details instruction on how to communicate and the task for the students. I understand the objective for the students as they prioritize the user stories from the Time travelers perspective, but just remind me what is the Spike as the Agile team. Is this a question the Agile teams need to gain further insights around the User Stories?

    How are the Spike suppose to be prioritized along with the Stories?

  3. Oh, this looks promising!
    Might be just what I need for a PO coaching session.
    If I do end up using it, I’ll let you know how it worked out 🙂
    Thanks for sharing!

  4. Fabio, that is great to hear, thank you for the feedback. If you have any suggestions for additional questions/topics of discussion or other tweaks please let me know.

    Cheers,

    Andrew Rusling

  5. As a Lean Agile coach I’ve used this game in Advanced Product Ownership course. we enjoyed the game a lot, in particular the extended version.

    fA

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