World of Warcraft and agile teams have many parallels in terms of role distribution, team-building, task management and communication. This talk starts by looking at concepts from WoW with direct parallels for agile teams: Duality of Roles, Team Building, Sustainability, "Questing" and Tools. Following this, the differences are noted: Lack of Dungeon Guides, Reliance on Specific Members, No Flying Dragons As a conclusion, we look at why achieving goals in the fantasy world works so well, why it doesn't always work so well in real life, and what we could do to change that. We consider whether roles on an agile team can be compared to roles in WoW (testers: healers or damage dealers?), and what conclusions can be drawn from such comparisons.

1. What Agile Teams Can Learn From
World of Warcraft
Alexandra Schladebeck, Bredex GmbH, Germany
Alexandra earned a degree and an MA in linguistics from York University before
starting work at BREDEX GmbH, where she is a trainer and consultant for
automated testing and test processes. As a product owner, she is also responsible
for developing user stories with customers as well as documentation and testing.
Alex frequently represents BREDEX at conferences, where she talks about agility
and testing from project experience. She is also involved in event organisation and
customer communication.
Alex started playing World of Warcraft almost seven years ago and has been
hooked ever since…
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3. Agenda
• Introductions and mandatory geek check
• World of Warcraft – a beginner’s guide
• Parallels with agile
• Differences to agile
• What can we learn?

4. Introductions
• BREDEX GmbH
– Software development and consulting
– Focus on quality
– Focus on communication
– Increasing use of agile practices
and you?

5. Brief introduction to WoW
• Create a character
– Race
– Class
– Equipment
– Talents
– Profession
– Skills
Character
Race
Skills (innate
abilities)
Class
Equipment
Enchantments
Improvements
Talents
Skills (talent
based)
Skills (class-
based)
Profession
Skills
Pictures: battle.net

6. Alex’s Character:
Blood Elf Priest
Blood Elf
Disrupt magic,
resist magic
Priest
Magic cloak
+5 intellect
Shadow form
Mind flay
Levitate,
Shadow Word:
Pain
Herbalism
Lifeblood (heal)
Example character
Picture: battle.net

7. Go on quests
• Quests
– Find things
– Kill things
– Save things
– Collect things
• Dungeons
– Killing and questing in a group, separate from others
– Big “bosses” to kill
• Raids
– Killing and questing in a very large group (25)

8. Agile vs. WoW
Similarities
• Roles
– Assignment & Flexibility
• Team
– Creation
– Communication
– Collaboration
– Improvement
• Task management
– Granularity
– Estimation
– Pace
– Tools
Differences
• Team
– Reliance on members
– Dragons and portals
• Task management
– Dungeon guides?

9. Roles: Assignment
Roles in WoW
- Healer
- Tank
- Damage Dealer
Assigned based on various factors
- Skills
- Experience
- Equipment
Picture: battle.net

10. Roles: Flexibility
May need to help others with
their role
- Healer disconnect?
- Unexpected health hit?
- Stunned tank?
Dual specializations are
possible
- Require practice
Picture: battle.net

11. Teams: Creation
Role-based
- Need specific roles
- Not all one role
Diversity brings benefits
- Herbalist Hunter can heal
himself
Groups  raids
- Smaller teams combine to
large group
- Each team structured same
Picture: techjunkie.co.za

12. Picture: pcweenie.com

13. Teams :
Communication
Quick
Unambiguous
Teamspeak for speed
Symbols everyone understands
Picture: joystiq.com

14. Teams : Collaboration
Can only succeed as a team
Know team:
- Skills
- Members
- Experience
Pairing heal and tank
Self-organizing
- List of tasks
- What order
- Who
- How

15. Teams : Improvement
What is hard now may be easy later
- Experience
- Skills
- Armour
- New group members
Play more, win more
Retrospectives
- Battle log
- Don’t step in the green goo
Picture: joystiq.com
Picture: pcweenie.com

16. Tasks: Granularity
Quests
- Information
- Requirements to complete
Quest sequences
- Each quest separate and
individual
- Reward after each quest
Picture: joystiq.com

17. Tasks : Estimation
Drop rate
Ease
Risk
Amount of players needed
Phases in fight are timeboxed
How much mana is enough
Picture: wowpedia.org

18. Tasks : Sustainability
and Pace
Refresh after fight
- Too many fights without
refresh can lead to death /
wipe
- Repair equipment
- Ideal situation is not
having to recover from
fight
Picture: pcweenie.com

19. Tasks : Tools
Macros
- Automation for sequences
- Can’t automate everything
- Intelligence and skill still
required
Tools
- Are often necessary
(healbot)
- Must be used correctly
- Can’t lose focus on fight
Picture: joystiq.com

20. Differences…
No automatic level up
No dragons, portals or dungeon finders
- Make life (and helping) easier
No reliance on specific role
- Damage dealers are less important
than tanks and healers
- Without the tank or healer  die
Can’t give up completely on tasks
No dungeon guides
Picture: wow-nimbert.de
Picture: joystiq.com

21. Who are the WoW testers?
• Healers?
– “Heal over time”  constant presence
– “Your fault” if we have a wipe?
• Damage dealers?
– Is testing a destructive activity?
– Do we cause problems from afar?
• Tanks?
– Standing at the forefront, taking the hits?
• Rogues?
– Because we’re sneaky?
• Mages?
– Because we do magic?

22. Why does the game work so well?
• Tangible, attainable goals
• Easy to help and be helped
• Instant gratification – it’s fun
• Because it’s not the real world
– Experience points
– Magic armour
– Automatic levelling
– It’s just a game

23. Conclusions:
What can we learn for our teams?
Aim WoW Agile
Make helping easier Dungeon finders
Easy port in and out
Open door policy
Same office
Rewards for helping and
initiative
$ for random dungeon Thank people
(also publicly)
Social / team incentives?
Nurture a common goal Prestige, XP, Items Pride in software
Foster mutual trust Playing regularly as a team Retrospectives
Create shared mental
models
World rules Transparent decisions
Reduce frustration Automatic improvement
Option to abandon quest
Attainable goals

24. Conclusions:
What can my “character” learn?
• Keep learning
– Practise “dual specialization”
– Aim for improvement
• Gain pleasure from social incentives and
rewards
• Rely on your team
– You can’t kill the boss on your own ;)
Picture: battle.net

25. Thank you!
Alexandra.Schladebeck@Bredex.de
alex_schl
www.bredexsw.com
blog.bredex.de
Picture: battle.net

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