The portfolio game

By Steve GarnettUnderstanding that the way we work influences our
behaviour and outcomes, and the importance of small
batch sizes
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegarnett

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 Purpose & Intent
 Game Explanation
 Facilitator’s Guide
 Appendix A: Boards & Room
 Appendix B: Example of Game Output
 Appendix C: Team Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’
 Appendix D: Value Tokens
Pack Structure
The Portfolio Game, by Steve Garnett

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The context is that of leading incremental Agile adoption within a large enterprise. The challenge was to
provide an initial introduction to Product Ownership and the benefits of an Enterprise Product Backlog to
a Product team who were using traditional project planning methods.
Set within a wider training session, the goal of the Portfolio Game is to help teams internalise some key
principles such as reducing batch size, identifying value and the continuous nature of Product Ownership.
The idea is to clearly highlight the relationship between ways of working and behaviour, that ultimately
lead to performance, and to recognise the effect that can be created by adopting smaller batch sizes. (low
work-in-progress & single piece flow).
The game is not about teaching anything else e.g. Product Backlog refinement, User Stories or other
methods. The purpose of the game is to help identify and comprehend the relationship between ways of
working (process, tools, people) and behaviour and realise that by changing our ways of working, we can
directly influence performance.
In the course of the game, other learning that an experienced facilitator can highlight include:
 Product Ownership is a continuous process of prioritisation and planning
 Change is constant and so all plans must inherently be adaptable
 Identifying value needs focus, by decomposing items we can hone where the value lies
 Just because an item is in the same area, don’t “just do it because you’re changing that anyway” as this
detracts focus from other areas of benefit and represents sub-optimisation
I hope that you find additional learning points as you use the game.
Purpose & Intent

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The game is a simulation of a full year of portfolio delivery. There are 2 teams, (Team A and Team B) and they are in competition to
produce the most value for their respective portfolios. Value is attributed when a ‘block of work’ has been completed. There are 3 types
of value that can be created: Revenue, Continuous Improvement and Regulatory Conformance.
The team that creates the most value within the portfolio year wins!
The Teams run their portfolios in parallel in the same room on different tables. Once they have their plan, they place their ‘blocks of
work’ on the same Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18) to enable a real-time comparison of performance and ways of working. Each
team is given a portfolio or backlog of items to prioritise in terms of value and effort. Effort in this game is an estimate in weeks.
Each Block of work looks like this:
Game Explanation
E-commerce Project P1
I want an Agile bookstore available on phones
and tablets with basic product selection, basket
and payment functionality to create revenue
20 weeks£8m
Title of Block of Work Description
EffortValue

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The company is facing considerable challenges from competitors and is starting to lose
market share. In response to these challenges the executive board has identified 3 key
strategic themes for next year:
 Improving our customer product to increase revenues by £18m
 Implement 10 regulatory changes to protect customers, ensure compliance and be a
leading trusted brand
 To adopt continuous improvement in everything we do to increase delivery
capability for the following year by 20%
Each of the strategic imperatives above have the same weight in terms of prioritisation,
we want progress across all three areas.
Each team is therefore challenged to deliver 18 x £1m revenue value tokens, 10 x 1
regulatory value tokens and 20 x 1% continuous improvement value tokens. With the
constraint being the amount of time available to deliver the value which is defined by
the estimate (in weeks).
Game Explanation – Strategy

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= £1m worth of value
Game Explanation - Structure
E-commerce Project P1
I want an Agile bookstore available on phones and
tablets with basic product selection, basket and
payment functionality to create revenue
20 weeks£8m
£1m

%
The Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18) itself is a view of an entire calendar year separated into weeks
and the teams add their blocks of work to the Delivery Board as we simulate the year. If we take the
previous example, we can see that this block has a value of £8m and will take 20 weeks to deliver. If the
team places this on the delivery board they have to wait 20 weeks for delivery but then get to score £8m
worth of value (so 8 x £1m value tokens). Value is added on to the Delivery Board as value tokens for
either revenue, continuous improvement, or regulatory conformance (Appendix D: Slides 40-42).
So for our example, once 20 weeks is complete, the Team would have 8 x £1m value tokens added at that
point to the Delivery Board, the Value Scorecard (Appendix A: Slide 19) should be updated to show £8m
of value realised, and the Product Burndown (Appendix A: Slide 20) should burn down 20 weeks of effort.
= 1% continuous improvement
= 1 item of Regulatory conformance

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Goal: To deliver as much value from the portfolio as you can through prioritising and planning
to achieve strategic imperatives.
Rules:
1. When you start a ‘block of work’ put it on the Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18)
2. You can only have one ‘block of work’ going at a time
3. Once you start a ‘block of work’ by putting it on the Delivery Board, you cannot stop or
change the activity until it is completed. i.e. must run for estimated period.
4. Upon completing a ‘block of work’, add the value created to the Delivery Board (Appendix
A: Slide 18) by sticking the tokens on to the Delivery Board at the time of completion,
reduce the Product Burndown (Appendix A: Slide 20) by the amount of effort (weeks) and
update your Value scorecard (Appendix A: Slide 19) with the value amount (same as
number of tokens)
5. You can reprioritise the plan during the year, but anything in progress cannot be re-
prioritised.
6. Estimates will not change during this year, any velocity change will not be felt until 2017
Portfolio Rules

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Facilitator’s Guide

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Team B
 23 x Team B Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’
 A Product Burndown
 Value Scorecard
 Post-Game Review Area
 24 x Revenue Value Tokens
 10 x Regulatory Value Tokens
 20 x Continuous Improvement Value Tokens
Team A
 6 x Team A Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’
 A Product Burndown
 Value Scorecard
 Post-Game Review Area
 24 x Revenue Value Tokens
 10 x Regulatory Value Tokens
 20 x Continuous Improvement Value Tokens
Preparation & Materials
Delivery Board
A large area, likely to be an entire wall. Enough space to represent 52 weeks of the year as a calendar view upon which
to run the game. (Template at Appendix A: Slide 18)
Set up the room with Team A and Team B on separate tables.
Keep a hold of the pink Loan Portfolio ‘blocks of work’ cards and 6 x £1m tokens from each table until later in the
game. Put the remaining ‘blocks of work’ cards for each team on their respective table with their tokens.
On the walls, ensure there is an area for each team with their Product Burndown, Value Scorecard and space for Post-
game review.
Finally, on the largest wall in the room, create the Delivery Board. (Room Layout at Appendix A: Slide 21)
NB: Italics indicate team specific artifacts

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To start the game, present the Game Explanation slides to the teams (Slides 4-7).
Step 1: Planning - Timebox = 10 minutes. Review and understand the portfolio of work. The team should then prioritise the portfolio and plan how they’re
going to delivery the ‘blocks of work’. By the end of the 10 minutes the following should be true:
The portfolio blocks of work are in a prioritised list
The Product Burn-down has been updated to show the total amount of work for the portfolio (e.g. everything is included)
January activities i.e. first items have been placed on the Delivery Board.
Step 2: It is now the end of January. Use a cursor/indicator to show on the Delivery Board that it’s the end of January.
Team A: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.
Team B: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.
Management Update: As facilitator provide an ad-hoc update on January e.g. welcome to the new year.
Finally – 2 minute timebox to re-assess your portfolio and re-prioritise any work and update any boards (Product Backlog, Value Scorecard, Delivery Board)
This is the basic structure for the game, and the monthly updates are provided on the following slide.
Monthly Cycle: It is now the end of <month>. Use a cursor/indicator to show on the Delivery Board that it’s the end of <month>.
Team A: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.
Team B: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.
Management Update: As facilitator provide <ad-hoc update on month> <complete facilitator action>
Finally – 2 minute timebox to re-assess your portfolio and re-prioritise any work and update any boards
Facilitator’s Brief - Instructions

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Facilitator’s Brief – Monthly Updates
Month Management Update Facilitator Action
January “Welcome to the New Year…” No additional action
February “There’s been a few early challenges in the new year but we’re all pulling together.” No additional action
March “Q1 not very successful, please focus on revenue generation in Q2.” No additional action
April “Continuing revenue challenges…” No additional action
May “We’re seeing an up-turn in the market, great effort everyone…” No additional action
June “We need to get the regulatory work done, its got to be completed by the end of
September…”
No additional action
July “We hope the holiday period doesn’t impact delivery!” No additional action
August “Where did you go on holiday? I went…” No additional action
September “We need to launch the New Loan Product as soon as possible” Give Team A their New Loan Product ‘block of work’ and
6 x £1m revenue tokens.
Give Team B their Get Loan, Mobile Loan, Change Term
and Compare Loan ‘blocks of work’ and 6 x £1m revenue
tokens.
October “The End of Year freeze is at the end of November, so there’s no deployments in
December although you can still carry on working in December no value can be
realised in that month.”
No additional action
November “Its now deployment freeze until January.” No additional action
December “Merry Christmas everyone, its been a challenging year so lets review our results.” No additional action

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Step 1: Conduct a comparison of the Product Burn-downs and Value
Scoreboards. Typically Team B far out-performs Team A, by a factor of 3
or 4.
Step 2: Then highlight to the teams that the portfolios were exactly the
same in terms of value and effort by showing the next slide. The tables
are colour-coded to match the ‘blocks of work’ on the Delivery Board.
So for example The Technology Refresh for Team A, has the same value
and effort as the Integration Refresh and the Technical Debt Removal for
Team B.
Facilitator’s brief – Post Game Review

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Portfolio ComparisonTeam A - Block of Work Value Effort
Customer Experience 2.0 £10m 24 weeks
Team B – Block of Work Value Effort
Social Media £1m 4 weeks
Paypal Service £2m 8 weeks
Responsive UI £1m 2 weeks
Relevancy/ Personalisation £1m 6 weeks
Merchandising Capability £5m 4 weeks
Team A - Block of Work Value Effort
Operations Upgrade 12% 8 weeks
LiveChat 0 2 weeks
Workflow Automation 4% 3 weeks
Real-time Data
Implementation
8% 3 weeks
Regulatory Requirements 10 16 weeks
Sanctions Update 8 2 weeks
SDLC Traceability 1 8 weeks
Basel 2017 1 1 week
Trading Regulations 0 5 weeks
Mobile First £8m 10 weeks
iOS v1 £3m 2 weeks
Android v1 £2m 2 weeks
iOS v2 £1m 2 weeks
Android v2 £1m 2 weeks
Windows v1 £1m 2 weeks
Technology Refresh 8% 24 weeks
Integration Refresh 7% 12 weeks
Technical Debt Removal 1% 12 weeks
New Loan Product £6m 8 weeks
Get a Loan £3m 2 weeks
Mobile Loan £1m 2 weeks
Change Term £1m 2 weeks
Compare Loans £1m 2 weeks

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Timebox = 10 minutes
In your teams you have 10 minutes to discuss the positives and negatives
of your approach. At the end of the 10 minutes please be ready to share
the following:
List of positive about your approach
List of negatives about your approach
What you have learnt from the game
Team-Level Review

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Summary
 Smaller batch sizes decrease complexity, increase visibility and allow flexibility
 Smaller batches mean shorter feedback loops, so more opportunities to inspect and
adapt!
 This requires continuous planning v 1-stop up-front planning
 Structure influences behaviour and therefore output
Call to Action!
IF we’re in agreement that our ways of working (i.e. process, batch size, rules, people,
tools) influence behaviour and output
THEN how we manage the [company] plan and portfolio for 201x will have a direct
impact on how much value is created during that year
AND therefore, what do you think needs to change in how we manage [company
product] for us to create more value next year?
Wrap-up & Call to Action

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Upon initial set up, do not lay out the New Loan Product block of work for Team A and for Team B do not
lay out Get a Loan, Mobile Loan, Change Term or Compare Loans – these are introduced to the teams
during the simulation.
The LiveChat item has no value assigned to it, so Team B probably ignored it. However Team A had
LiveChat embedded within the Operations Upgrade block of work, so there’s less visibility of waste in
large batches.
For Team A the whole of Regulatory Changes had to be implemented by September. For Team B only the
Sanctions Update needed to be implemented by September because the Trading Regulations had no value
so should never have been implemented as they’re not part of the strategic imperatives.
You don’t have to cut out all the tokens if you can buy some small coloured shapes and write on the
values.
Don’t forget to only layout out 18 x £1m tokens at the beginning to each team. The final £6m of tokens
belong to the New Product Loan item(s).
Additional Coaching Notes

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Appendix A contains the following:
 Delivery Board Template
 Value Scorecard
 Product Burndown
 Room Layout
Appendix A – Boards & Room

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Delivery Board Template
Team
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
TeamATeamB

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Team _ Value Scorecard
£ % 
5
10
15
20
25
When the team
completes a ‘block
of work’, whatever
value is in the left
hand corner
should be added to
this scorecard in
the appropriate
column i.e. £s, %,
or 

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When the team
completes a ‘block
of work’, whatever
effort is in the right
corner should be
subtracted from
the burn-down.
Team _ Product Burndown
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
20
40
60
80
100

21
Typical Room Layout
Team B Table
Team A
Table
Delivery Board on the Wall
Team A Product Burn-down, Value Scorecard,
& Review Area
Team B Product Burn-down, Value Scorecard &
Review Area
Team A
Blocks of
Work
Team B
Blocks of
Work
£1m £1m1% 1%1 1

22
Appendix B contains following:
 An example completed Delivery Board
 Comparison example of Team A and Team B Output
 An example of Team A and Team B Review
Appendix B – Example Output

23
Example of a Completed Delivery
Board

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Team BTeam A
Comparison of Product Burndown & Value Scorecards
Team Revenues £ Continuous
Improvement %
Regulatory
Changes 
Team A £8m 0 10
Team B £17m 18% 10

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Positives Negatives Learning
Managed
stakeholders’
expectations
Didn’t achieve all
the goals
Can see progress
early and often
Fun Prioritised in silos
(time constraint)
Not to be in Team A
Consensus of
approach
Learn to identify
true value
Able to react to
change
Continuous
planning &
prioritisation
Form of
prioritisation easier
to manage
Delivered a lot
75%+
Team B
Positives Negatives Learning
Prioritisation was
relatively easy
Less meaningful
updates / reporting
Scope of delivery
was too broad
Calm Sunk cost, no return Unable to track
effectively
Stability of
environment
Delivery risk –
changes, delay,
resource
Less overhead Less adaptable – not
Agile
Easier to control Didn’t meet target
Team A
Example of Review Output

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Appendix C contains the following:
 6 x Team A Portfolio ‘blocks of work’
 23 x Team B Portfolio ‘blocks of work’
Appendix C – ‘Blocks of Work’

Team A - Customer Experience 2.0
Project to deliver social media integration, a paypal
service, implement a responsive UI, provide
relevancy/personalisation and merchandising
capability
£10m 24 weeks
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4J Consulting Limited

Team A - Operations Upgrade
Project to implement livechat, workflow automation
and synchronise operational data flows as part of lean
change within operations
12% C.I. 8 weeks
28

Team A - Regulatory Requirements
Implement Sanctions update, SDLC traceability, Basel
2017 rules and the new trading regulations. Must be
implemented by end of September
10 16 weeks
29

Team A - Mobile First
Go live with iOSv1, Androidv1, iOSv2, Androidv2 and
Windowsv1 apps
£8m 10 weeks
30

Team A - Technology Refresh
Overhaul our integration capabilities for SOA and
remove technical debt
8% C.I. 24 weeks
31

Team A - New Loan Product
Launch a new Loans product into the market including
consumer getting a loan, changing term, mobile loan
capability and compare loans
£6m 8 weeks
32

Team B - Social Media
Hook into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
with authentication
£1m 4 weeks
33
Team B - Paypal Service
Provide digital payments through Paypal
£2m 8 weeks
Team B - Responsive UI
Re-implement UI to cater for all browsers
and devices
£1m 2 weeks
Team B - Relevancy / Personalisation
Tailored offers, people who bought this
bought… etc.
£1m 6 weeks

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Team B - LiveChat
Providing customer service operations
with livechat capabilities to enable real-
time, multi-customer, simultaneous
textual comms with customers
No value 2 weeks
Team B - Workflow Automation
Create paperless, automated and
configurable operational process
capabilities
4% C.I. 3 weeks
Team B - Real-time Data Implementation
Upgrade our systems integration capabilities to
send data in real time across systems in order
to remove batch updates, poor information,
duplications and operational constraints at
month end
8% C.I. 3 weeks
Team B - Sanctions Update
Implement Sanctions update, SDLC
traceability, Basle 2017 rules and the new
trading regulations. Must be
implemented by the end of September.
8 2 weeks
4J Consulting Limited 4J Consulting Limited

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Team B - SDLC Traceability
Implement changes to all SDLC systems
to provide full traceability of change
through the business unit
1 8 weeks
Team B - Basel 2017
Implement the Basel legislative changes
for 2017 in 2016
1 1 week
Team B - Trading Regulations
Implement Sanctions update, SDLC
traceability, Basel 2017 rules and the new
trading regulations. Must be
implemented by end of September
No value 5 weeks
Team B - iOS v1
Go to market with our first iOS app
£3m 2 weeks

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Team B - Android v1
Go to market with our first Android app
£2m 2 weeks
Team B - iOS v2
Release 2 of our iOS app
£1m 2 weeks
Team B -Android v2
Release 2 of our Android app
£1m 2 weeks
Team B -Windows v1
Go to market with our first iOS app
£1m 2 weeks

37
Team B - Integration Refresh
Overhaul our integration capabilities for
SOA and remove technical debt
7% C.I. 12 weeks
Team B - Technical Debt Removal
Refactor and redesign our core systems to
make us go faster
1% C.I. 12 weeks
Team B – Get a Loan
Launch new Loans product with basic
digital experience
£3m 2 weeks
Team B – Mobile Loan
Implement basic Loans product
experience on our mobile apps
£1m 2 weeks

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Team B – Change Term
Customer functionality to change the
term of a loan
£1m 2 weeks
Team B – Compare Loans
Customer functionality to compare loans
from competitors against ours
£1m 2 weeks

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Appendix D contains the following:
 Set of 24 x £1m Revenue Tokens
 Set of 20 x 1% Continuous Improvement Tokens
 Set of 10 x 1 Regulatory Change Tokens
Appendix D – Value Tokens

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Revenue Tokens
£1m £1m
£1m
£1m
£1m
£1m
£1m £1m £1m £1m
£1m£1m£1m
£1m£1m£1m
£1m
£1m
£1m £1m £1m £1m £1m £1m

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Continuous Improvement
Tokens
1%
1%
1% 1%
1%
1% 1%
1%
1%1%
1%
1%1% 1%
1% 1% 1% 1%
1% 1%

42
Regulatory Change Tokens
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1

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