Наталія Яценко "Practicing Agile Skills with business simulation games and exercises"

1. Practicing Agile Skills with business
simulation games and exercises

2. Agenda
1. Introduction
2. How people learn
3. Knowledge vs Skills
4. Agile Games

3. Who We Are
Ciklum is an award-winning global IT company with more than 13 years of experience in IT outsourcing. We recruit
from a pool of more than 40,000 IT specialists throughout the world to build your development dream team, working
closely with you to meet your needs from beginning to end. Since 2002, our 90-plus in-house recruitment specialists have
helped some of the biggest and most innovative brands hire and retain more than 2,500 developers in 11 locations across
Eastern and Southern Europe and Asia.

4. My profile
Nataliia Iatsenko
● Ciklum Project and Process Consultant
● ICAgile Authorized Trainer
● ICP Certified Professional
● APM Project Management Qualification
More than 9 years of IT experience in such areas as QA, business analysis,
defining business needs and opportunities, verifying solutions and processes, managing
projects in portfolio and programs, coaching and applying Agile and Lean principles.
Experience in building PMO guidelines and setting up processes from scratch, defining
the most suitable SDLC for different business flows and teams.

5. How people learn
1. Acquire theoretical knowledge
2. Identify the general technique or method
3. Start practicing
4. Learn tips and tricks or identify them yourself
5. Practice more using different techniques

6. Knowledge vs Skills
Knowledge refers to information, acquired by a person through books, media,
encyclopedias, academic institutions and other sources.
Skill refers to the ability of using information and applying it in a context.
Knowledge Skills
Can be shared Cannot be shared
Theoretical Practical

7. Knowledge vs Skills
• Is it possible to become a professional in particular area without practicing?
• Do I learn by Reading vs by Doing?
Actions Skill?
Commit on Daily Basis Y/N
Build self-organized team Y/N
Setup meetings Y/N
Facilitate discussion Y/N
Resolve Conflicts Y/N

8. Knowledge vs Skills Matrix
0 - no knowledge
1 - basic knowledge
2 - good knowledge and working competency
3 - good competency
4 - expert

9. Learning Pyramid

10. Learning from experience
Typing SMS while driving the car
Driver A Driver B
Week 1 Accident. Everything is OK
Week 2 No phone usage while driving the car Everything is OK
Week 3... No phone usage while driving the car Everything is OK
... ... ...
...Week 10 No phone usage while driving the car Accident.
Week 11 No phone usage while driving the car ?

11. Learning from experience
(case with specific knowledge holder)
Scrum Team A Scrum Team B
Sprint 1 Sprint Failed, since Java Dev got sick. Sprint Succeed. No knowledge transfer plan.
Sprint 2 Pair Programming is introduced to share the
knowledge
Sprint Succeed. No knowledge transfer plan.
Sprint N
Pair Programming / Code Review / Product
Documentation are in place
Sprint Failed, since Java Dev got sick.
Sprint N+1 ?

12. Instant gratification vs long-term benefits
Action Instant gratification Long term effect
Smoking Pleasure from nikotin Cancer
Saving money for the
future
Less money More money
Physical Exercises It is hard Good health and shape
Cakes Tasty! Overweight
and
Unit Test Increase project cost Decrease quality risk

13. Learning Curve

14. Experience with games
Competence = Knowledge +
Practices
Game = Story + Rule + Play
Game is like a story with rules and action, emotion and experience.
You can forget some facts, you will not forget your experience.

15. Choose the game
• What are your learning objectives (skills-matrix)?
• What issue you would like to highlight and discuss?
• How would you like to challenge your players, team etc?
• What is your capability (facilitator, time, place, number of people)?

16. Agile Games
1. Ballpoint Game
2. Scrum Lego Game
3. Scrum Simulation
4. Business Value Game
5. The power of open-ended requirements
6. Kanban Pizza
7. Marshmallow Challenge
8. Paper Tower
9. XP Game
10. Bottleneck. Theory of Constraints
11. Elephant Carpaccio. Learn to split stories
12. Multitasking Name Game
13. Scrum from Hell

17. 17
Ball Points Game Duration: 2 hours
Number of people: up to 10 people
Learning Objectives:
❖ Scrum Flow = Deming Cycle (plan, do, check, act)
❖ The power of Retrospective,
❖ The power of Face-To-Face сommunication.
❖ Being ready to experiment and accept the failure
❖ Сhallenge constraints and identify waste
❖ Pull&Push approaches

18. 18
Scrum Simulation
Duration: 2 hours
Number of people: up to 10 people
Learning Objectives:
❖ Wishful Thinking and Yesterday weather
estimation
❖ Backlog Priorities
❖ Managing Expectation
❖ Team reliability and predictability

19. 19
Business Value Game
Duration: 2 hours
Number of people: up to 10 people
Learning Objectives:
❖ Involve salespeople, product managers and
executives in an Agile improvement project
❖ Concentrates on Release Planning and the client
role.
❖ Clarify the concept of “Business Value”
❖ Define your organisation’s “Business Value Model”.
❖ Dealing with deadlines and dependencies?

20. 20
Kanban Pizza
Duration: 60-90 minutes with retrospective
Number of people: starting from 5 people
Learning Objectives:
❖ Experience how a Kanban system emerges from an
existing process
❖ Experience a whole Kanban system (as opposed to
focusing only on the Kanban board and related
mechanics)
❖ Understand that boards are context-dependent
❖ Understand the effects of limiting your Work in Progress
❖ Experience self-organization and adaptation

21. Time to practice
The power of open-ended
requirements ;)

22. www.ciklum.com