Team Responsibility Game

Intention of the game The intention of the game is to experience sharing responsibility for a common purpose discover unhealthy team dynamics and reflect and think about better ways to work together. I use the game as a start into a longer retrospective in which I like to focus on the topics of team dynamics, responsibilities and sharing of the workload. Time Time required: 45-75 min Number…

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;…

Three Projects, Three Experiments

Context: This game is similar to multi-tasking game, and can be used to teach concepts like   focusing on people utilization (instead of completing projects early), continuous partial attention,  effect of lack of face to face communication, limiting Work-in-progress, etc. Acknowledgements: This is a variation of how Peter Saddington did his multi-tasking game at Agile 2013 What you need: flip charts (to note down times), stop watch, 6-8…

Delight

This improv exercise originally comes from the work of Keith Johnstone. Geoff and I picked up the exercise from an improv workshop with Neil Mullarkey of the Comedy Store Players, in London. Timings: 5-10 mins Materials: 2 people (standing up) Instructions: The pair must tell a story about something imaginary they did together, but one of the pair can only interact with the story by…

Gift Box

(this exercise was co-created as part of a collaboration day between myself and Geoff Watts, credit to Paul Z Jackson from his book) Timings: 5-10 mins Materials: 2 people (standing up) Instructions: One person holds an imaginary box in front of them. This imaginary box is capable of holding any item imaginable. The partner’s job is to mime pulling items out of the box, whilst…