How to start up a distributed team online with gamification Remote first is becoming the norm, and this is also true for new teams. Where you would previously organize one or more onsite kick-off sessions to start a new team, a new distributed team would have to be working online together from day 1. Techniques used for team chartering might still be useful, but they would need a different approach for online working. Gamification, incentifying people’s engagement by using game-style principles and practices, can help you to build strong teams. In this session, we’ll look at several tools and playing formats that can be used to start up distributed teams and foster further development. We’ll do the exercises in teams, and as we will be experimenting with both in-person and online exercises it’s good to bring your laptop or tablet too. Mini XP Days Instead of scaling up further, XP Days decided to “scale-out”: they rerun some of the favourite sessions of the previous year’s XP Days at the “Mini XP Day”, a one day conference with three tracks. Mini XP Day is ideal if you’ve missed XP Days or if you want to get a “taste” of what XP Days is. Mini XP Days 2022 will be held on May 17 at the Van der Valk Hotel Beveren.

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Increasing Psychological Safety in Agile Team

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Starting Up Distributed Teams
 Short sessions: 4 hours max, 2 hours is better
 Frequent breaks: 10 minutes every hour
 Use check-ins to engage everyone
 Break up into smaller groups
 Interactive: Games, exercises (not “meetings”)
 Focus on one topic per session
 Visualize, co-create outcomes, collaborate
 Distribute sessions throughout the week/timezones
A new distributed team has to be
working online together from day 1

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Physical & virtual exercises
Exercises are the same, but played differently onsite or online:
 Culture Moodboard benlinders.com/xpdays1
 Psychological Safety benlinders.com/xpdays2
Share learnings after playing the exercises.

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Ask me Anything!
Free Lifetime Support (email): benlinders.com/fls
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Thank you!
Thank you!
Ben Linders
Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.com
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@BenLinders
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• Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
• Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
• Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
BenLinders.com
Books: Valuable Agile Retrospectives Problem? What Problem?
What Drives Quality Self-assessments Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game Retrospectives Bingo Impediments
Quality Coaching Cards Agile Testing Cards

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Gamification
• Applying principles and practices from
gaming in a non-gaming context
 Solving problems/challenges together,
 Share stories, travel journeys
 Progression or emerge structure
Enabling Improvement

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What can gamification bring?
 People like to play games
 Encourages and involves people
 Provides different perspectives
 Stimulates collaboration
 Builds relationships
 Visualizes what’s happening
 Establishes safety to fail and learn