Using Innovation Games To Prioritize Technical Debt Pub

Using Innovation Games® To Identify & Prioritize Technical Debt Luke Hohmann Founder and CEO The Innovation Games® Company Twitter: #innovgames

A bit about Luke Work Hard Play Hard (even at work  )

Agenda
What’s technical debt?
How do I identify it?
How do I prioritize it?
How do I get it done?

Technical Debt Cruft in your { code | architecture | data | data model | build process | other | that { slows down future progress | just annoys you } Thx Ward Cunningham & Sterling/Barton and lots of others in the technical community

Cruft… Happens We get a better idea and want to refactor our code We cut corners when we’re sprinting to the finish Previously OK code needs to change (security patch, upgrading libraries)

However… The savvy developer treats technical debt just as the entrepreneur does financial debt. They use it wisely. It speeds delivery, so long as it is properly managed .

Collaboratize SM To Get Rid of Cruft Play Speed Boat to identify the crufty anchors that are slowing down your team. Shape anchors into potential projects. Play Buy a Feature to prioritize projects. Identify Shape Prioritize

What Are Innovation Games®
Innovation Games® are serious games that solve a wide range of product strategy and management problems across the market lifecycle.
They are played:
with customers & internal stakeholders
online or in-person
within or across organizational units
in single or multi-game formats

What Makes Innovation Games® Unique?
Relaxed, “collaboratively competitive” structure
encourages teamwork
increases sharing of information
and is competitively fun
Games utilize verbal, non-verbal, written, visual and spatial forms of communication which create rich, nuanced information.
Strong foundations cognitive psychology & organizational behavior research.

We can collaborate & innovate (better) through serious games

Not Humor Like Joke Not Silly Like Water Park

More Like Settlers of Catan & Euchre Meet Business

And yes, it is FUN V1-388 Luke Did you enjoy this experience? V1-388 Toni Yes - fun! V1-388 Greg Sure. V1-388 Greg I enjoyed it. V1-388 Vladimir thanks for the chance. B) V1-393 Luke Did you enjoy the experience? Would you be willing to play again in the future? V1-393 Tom yes, and yes V1-393 Mike Yes -- it was fun V1-393 Sarah Definitely V1-393 Dominic Yes, and I think VersionOne are getting great info here V1-393 Patrick I would be happy to play again. V1-394 Luke Team, are you now satisfied with your bids? V1-394 Mike YES! V1-394 Rene yup V1-394 Andre Indeed. V1-394 Jim I want more money! V1-394 Andre It was hard. But lots of fun. And yes, I want more money too - do you take credit cards? V1-394 Mike hahaha V1-394 Mike ok, gotta go guys.... it was fun

Not Work (Leisure) Pleasure Work Play Not-Play External Goals Internal Goals Not-Pleasure Adapted from http://it.coe.uga.edu/~lrieber/resources/blanchardmodel.gif

Identify Cruft with Speed Boat Identify the crufty anchors that are holding your team back from success
Draw a picture of a boat
The boat represents your system
Developers create anchors that are holding them back

Players place anchors anywhere they want. These anchors appear in real-time in the game board. You can use whatever picture you want (your system could be a sailboat). Integrated chat facility for players.

Helpful Tips… Boats are good for generic processes High-level architectures can help development teams focus on specific areas or issues within the system www.enigma.com

Shaping
Speed Boat game results are shaped into potential projects.
Each project is defined in terms of benefits, impacts and costs.
Involve your team!

Prioritize Projects with Buy a Feature
12-20 projects described in terms of benefits and costs
5 to 8 players given limited budget
Purchased items represent the priorities of the team
Chat logs shape results
Prioritize the improvement backlog

Buy A Feature Online - Preparing A list of features with prices. This example is for product concepts for a pair of internet sunglasses “ Shirt Sizes” help you quickly price your features – or you can enter a price directly!

Playing the Game Players are listed along the top with their budget Player bids. Highly desired items are purchased. The chat facility helps players negotiate about the items they desire.

Buy A Feature Online - Results Results of many games played, sorted by number of times purchased.

Many Ways to Play: Parties, Galas, and Tournaments What is it? Who plays? Facilitated? Number of Items? Number of players? Party A “dinner party”. You select and control participants Yes 12..20 5..8 Gala An “open seating event” Random participants based on a shared URL No 12..20 9+ In groups of 5..8 Tournament A combination of parties! You control and select participants Yes 20+ Based on num of items & num of tournaments

Tournament Structure Play many tournaments to control for “bracket strength”.

Getting it Done
Big stuff gets added to your roadmap
Smaller items gets added to your backlog
Allocate a certain number of points each sprint to fixing them
OR
Schedule an entropy reduction sprint to get rid of lots of cruft
Learn more about roadmaps and entropy reduction here:

Getting Started
Sign up for a free account: www.innovationgames.com
Play games.
Enjoy the results.

Thank You Innovation Through Understanding® Luke Hohmann Founder & CEO The Innovation Games® Company cell: (408) 529-0319 [email_address]

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Using Innovation Games To Prioritize Technical Debt Pub

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