The Fatware Matrix

The human desire for choice is unlimited. At least this is advocated in many psychological theories of human motivation and economic theories of rational choice. And this is so natural – after all having multiple options gives us the freedom to select the ones which suit us best. However scientists have recently found just the opposite – having “too many” choice might be demotivating and…

New Kanban simulation game “Featureban”

Featureban is a fun way for small groups to try out some basic visual management (visualisation + feedback loops), and then experience the dramatic effect of adding work-in-progress limits to create working kanban systems. It’s also possible to add in metrics (there are instructions included for that already) or to connect multiple systems together (sorry, you’re on your own there). It should be easy to add other elements too;…

Sudokuban: A Kanban in action game in puzzles

Timing: This game is normally done in a forty-five minute time block: 10 minutes upfront for instructions, 20 minutes for the game, and 15 minutes for the debrief. Overview: The Sudokuban game is a quick 45 minute game to practice Kanban in a safe to fail environment where constraints have been setup to swiftly force work in progress limits to be hit. Built using pre-constructed sudoku puzzles and mimicking…

Epic bedtime story

There are not many games out there to explain and discuss how distributed teams work and for very good reasons. Teams **should** be co-located.
This simple game is intended for any member of your organisation/teams to understand the challenges related to “distributed scrum”.
This also relate to the roles/skills and how natural instincts affect teams so there is no wrong way to play it.
**I tried it with 4th graders to test it before I brought this to the grownups. Went really well in both cases.
Goal: The goal is to create a children’s book of 10-12 pages within 40 minutes using 2 to 6 teams.

Lego Flow Game

Timing: 60-90 minutes Overview: The Lego Flow Game is a fun exercise to compare and contrast different approaches to processes, with respect to how work flows. The aim of the game is to build Lego Advent Calendar items, with a defined workflow: finding the next advent calendar number (analysis), finding the matching set of lego pieces (supply), creating the lego item (build) and checking the item…