I’m always looking for 5 minute learning exercises and Scrum and Agile is supposed to be about self directed teams. I use an exercise with two (2) 30 second time-boxes to help the team learn the power of self direction. They quickly learn that you produce more without waiting for someone to tell you what to do. Scrum Teams need to learn about and experience self directed decision making and its potential benefits.
Exercise: Leader – Follower
Activity: (30 sec per Phase – 1 minute total)
- Everyone pairs up
- Roles: Announcer and Walker
- Phase 1:
- Announcer tells the walker to step either forward, left or right
- Walker Steps and Counts Steps
- After 30 seconds record the number of steps
- Write all the scores on a whiteboard for everyone to see
- Then switch roles (end phase 1)
- Phase 2:
- Announcer just counts the steps
- Walker Steps any way they want and Counts Steps
- After 30 seconds record the number of steps
- Write all the scores on a whiteboard for everyone to see
- (end phase 2)
Look at the scores and discuss the results. It should be easy to see the difference in number of steps in each 30 second time box. The results typically double in the same 30 seconds.
This exercise is adapted from my CSM class taught by Kiran Thakkar (http://www.dailyagile.com/) and others. I think he called it Command and Control. I changed it to be more time-boxed than action based, where other instructor have the teams count 60 steps.
Don’t fix the Work, Fix the Time.
I also like the time box approach, because it makes the visual tabulation (info-radiator) easier to see the improvement.
I have done this a few times and it is a great little exercise for new forming teams and leadership classes. So why not do this simple exercise with each and every team. The teams learn lots in a mere 60 seconds.
Teams learn:
- Self Direction
- Team Work – Pairing
- Information Radiators
- Communicating
- Time Boxing
- Being Done at the end of a time verse a pre-described scope
- It gets everyone moving around
Here are some more reference to similar exercises that I researched, but most use the 60 steps verse the 30 second time boxes which I like:
- Sixty Steps in the Right Direction, By Michele Sliger – November 27, 2007
- Agile Games at Gotocon (http://gotocon.com/) They call it “Worker – Boss” in a 2013 presented by Gitte Klitgaard Hansen from http://www.agile42.com/en/
- They have a pdf of the presentation – http://gotocon.com/dl/2013/GOTONights/2013-05-22_gotonight_agile_games.pdf
- they also reference http://www.innovationgames.com/
Happy Walking
Greg
