ScrumTale – The Scrum...

ScrumTale – The Scrum Game by AgileBrains.pl

License ........................................................................................................................................................... 1

Game overview .............................................................................................................................................. 2

Goals of this game ......................................................................................................................................... 2

The Game Scenario ........................................................................................................................................ 6

Game Sprint 1 ................................................................................................................................................ 6

Game Sprint 2 ................................................................................................................................................ 7

Game Sprint 3 ................................................................................................................................................ 8

Debrief ........................................................................................................................................................... 9

Appendix: Timing chart ............................................................................................................................... 10

Appendix: Game Plots / User Stories cards ................................................................................................. 11

License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Version: 0.1

11th December 2017

http://agilebrains.pl/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Game overview This game is Scrum simulation game. Teams’ goal is to write the greatest tale ever. Team will write story

simultaneously using google docs on their laptops.

Collaboratively writing the story is the very close to software production. You can observe the same

issues with integration, bugs, tool issues and team collaboration. This game is also a perfect tool to play

different Scrum roles. You can feel how difficult is to be a PO or SM during stormy team story writing.

This document describes the game for two teams. One facilitator is enough, but second one helps

playing customer role.

Goals of this game Experience Scrum ceremonies.

Experience self-organization under time pressure.

Experience continues improvement process.

Experience how different roles contributes to product development (and how hard they could be

sometimes ).

Experience integration issues, defects in product increment, tool issues.

Experience emergent leadership.

Have fun writing and reading your story .

Duration: ~3.5h

Recommended number of participants for two teams: 9-12

Stationery and preparation Preparation list:

1. Magnets (for backlogs).

2. Red post-its (for defects).

3. Yellow post-its (for ad-hoc stories wanted by customer/PO or defined by team).

4. Flipchart with events timings where you can mark current event.

5. Product backlog on whiteboard (Ranked list – put the most important story at the top).

6. Sprint backlogs on whiteboard (Todo, In Progress, Ready for Deploy, Done).

7. Printout of user stories.

8. One extra facilitator (to play customer role).

You can prepare backlogs on one big whiteboard. For two teams it works fine if you put product backlog

in the middle and team sprint backlogs aside.





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Prepare Google Docs or other similar environment. Prepare easy to type URL (e.g. using bit.ly or other

service).

Roles Game defines several roles:

1. One Customer (this role is played by the game facilitator).

2. One Product Owner.

3. Two Scrum teams (3-4 people).

4. Two Scrum Masters (one per team).

It’s better when participant role in the game is the closest to the one he/she has in real life.

The Tale and Plots Business goal is to write a crime story with love episode ended with murder. Killer is from Gdańsk.

Victim is from Warsaw. They meet each other in Moscow which is the last city visited by victim. Police

will never find a killer.

Teams will write the tale in chunks called Plots. Each Plot is represented by User Story. User Story

description will contain new Tale element and estimated Business Value in ($, $$, $$$, $$$$). Plots are

defined in Appendix: Game Plots.

The Tale needs to be „potentially shippable” after each Sprint.





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Facilitation:

1. Prepare product backlog and team scrum boards on the whiteboard. Prepare two copies of

stories printouts. One copy will be used on whiteboard, second will be taken by teams during the

sprint.

2. You can try to introduce Story Point scale, but we find it’s too much in one game.

Plots (User Stories) Definition of Done 1. Tale must be consistent.

2. Chronology must be kept along all Plots.

3. It must have beginning, content and closure.

4. No grammar and punctuation mistakes.

5. Font: Arial, 11pt, black color.

Locations The Tale is based in three places: Warsaw, Gdańsk and Moscow.

Time The Tale tales place over the period of one week starting on Sunday 8:00 am. All plotlines must keep

track of time and events must occur at a recognizable time either in relation to another event or at fixed

time.

Characters Each character must have a name.

Sprints 1. There will be 3 Sprints in the game (1, 2, 3).

2. Each sprint has 3 days.

3. Each day starts with 2min. daily stand-up followed by 5min. of work.

4. Make standup really standing meeting.

5. Each sprint (except Sprint 1) starts with RRP session

Facilitation:

1. Prepare „metrics” board using flipchart. In each sprint write how much Stories each team

committed for Sprint and how much Stories each team delivered in each sprint. Tell SM that it will

be their role to track metrics.





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Game preparation 1. Prepare Google Docs document, share it for everyone with the link and create short URL.

2. Prepare whiteboard and product backlog.

3. Explain game rules.

4. Teams must be formed.

5. Roles must be assigned.

6. Check if everybody has Google Docs access.

7. During setting up Google Docs Customer meets with PO and explains product backlog.





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The Game Scenario The game starts here

Meeting with the customer The game starts with the customer kick-off meeting. The customer talks about the business goal and

business value of the product. Customer must explain business need and business goals for the product.

Customer must also explain main requirements of the story.

Product Backlog refinement PO must lead Product Backlog refinement. He/she need to explain stories and priorities.

Game Sprint 1

Planning 1. Teams take new stories from Product Backlog into the Sprint Backlog. In this sprint each team

gets Plots with separate locations. One team takes Gdańsk, second team takes Warsaw.

2. Teams make Sprint commitment.

Work Each team write the Tale with Plots planned for this Sprint. First Plots are constructed in a way that no

collaboration between teams is needed. Sprint work is divide into three days.

Facilitation:

1. Make sure PO is working with Teams and Customer.

2. Make sure SM actively support Teams and identifies impediments.

3. Every 7 minutes announce new day and call for daily standup.

4. Mark completed events on timetable flipchart.

RRP1 - Demo Teams meets at a common Demo session. It’s recommended to read the whole story (by Customer or

PO). During reading each team presents their User Stories (Plots) and fixed defects (during next demos).

Each team, should show User Story and acceptance criteria.

1 RRP stands for Review(aka Demo), Retrospection, Planning. It’s a one meeting block, which contains those Scrum ceremonies.





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Facilitation:

1. Make sure teams listens to Customer/PO comments.

2. Give yellow post-its to write down new stories which Customer/PO requests during demo.

3. As a Customer make at least on comment per Team which require small change in already

created Plots. Say clearly that those changes have top priority and highest business value. Make

sure PO noticed this comments on yellow post-it and new this new User Stories will be added to

the Product Backlog.

4. Give teams red post-its to write down defects which come up during demo session.

RRP - Retrospection Scrum Masters will facilitate separate retrospections in each team.

Facilitation:

1. Make sure there will be tangible output from retrospection.

RRP – Planning Add plots marked „Set 2” to the Product Backlog.

1. PO should add new stories to the Product Backlog as a result of Customer feedback on a demo.

PO decides on Business Value.

2. If there is need for clarification Teams can ask questions.

3. Teams will take new stories from Product Backlog into the Sprint Backlog

4. Teams makes Sprint commitment.

Game Sprint 2 Each Team must extend The Tale by Plots planned for this Sprint. In this Sprint teams still need to deliver

consistent Tale.

Defects must be fixed with the highest priority.

Add plots marked „Set 3” to Product Backlog before Sprint 3 planning session.

Facilitation:

1. Make sure SM actively support Teams collaboration.

2. Every 7 minutes announce new day and call for daily standup.

3. Make sure PO explains changed priorities in Product Backlog.

4. Observe how teams and SM deal with cross team collaboration.





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Game Sprint 3 Each Team must extend The Tale by Plots planned for this Sprint. In this Sprint some Plots require

collaboration of two teams. After this Sprint teams need to deliver final Tale.

This is the final demo of the product. Customer checks consistence of the product and give final

feedback.





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Debrief During debrief you can discuss:

1. How it was to work on one products and deliver „potentially shippable” product in each Sprint?

2. How particular roles contributes to Scrum?

3. What about quality?

4. What about customer requirements?

5. How Scrum impacts communication and collaboration?

6. How iterations and demo helps to deliver final product?

7. How prioritization works in Scrum?

8. How Teams’ Sprint commitments works?





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Appendix: Timing chart Write similar table on a flipchart. Use it to show current phase of the game.

Workshop step Duration (min)

Done

Game intro and role assignment 10 Meeting with customer and backlog refinement 10

Planning 10

[Sprint 1] Day 1 7

[Sprint 1] Day 2 7

[Sprint 1] Day 3 7

[RRP] Demo 20

[RRP] Retrospection 5

[RRP] Planning 10

[Sprint 2] Day 1 7

[Sprint 2] Day 2 7

[Sprint 2] Day 3 7

[RRP] Demo 20

[RRP] Retrospection 5

[RRP] Planning 10

[Sprint 3] Day 1 7

[Sprint 3] Day 2 7

[Sprint 3] Day 3 7

[RRP] Demo 20

Debrief 10





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Appendix: Game Plots / User Stories cards In square brackets is fixed location of the Plot. Some Plots have no fixed location, so Team can decide

about location for those Plots.

Set1: Initial Backlog 1. [Gdańsk] Introduce the killer character. The character gets a letter that makes him sad.

2. [Gdańsk] Railway station. Introduce new character. The character looks suspicious for policeman.

3. [Gdańsk] Situation gets worse.

4. [Warsaw] Introduce the character of the victim. She is a beautiful woman. Describe her

character.

5. [Warsaw] Describe location. It must be strange and hostile.

6. [Warsaw] Introduce new character. She is scared. Her life is in danger.

Set 2: Sprint 2 additional stories 1. [Gdańsk] Somebody gets mysterious SMS.

2. [Warsaw] The weather is getting worse. The storm is causing the situation to change

dramatically.

3. Add two dialogues to already written situations.

Set 3: Sprint 3 additional stories 1. Introduce phone call between killer and victim.

2. Killer and victim meets in Moscow

3. Describe murder through the eyes of a killer.





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Stories Cards

ID / Location A-1 / Gdańsk

Title Killer

Description Introduce the killer character. The character gets a letter that makes him sad.

Acceptance criteria There must be at least 2 details about how he looks like. There must be at least 2 details about his personality. It must be interesting.

Business value $$$$

Set 1


Title Stranger

Description Railway station. Introduce new character. The character looks suspicious for policeman.

Acceptance criteria It must be early in the morning. He must have strange clothes.

Business value $

Set 1


Title Situation gets worse

Description Situation gets worse

Acceptance criteria It must be well written, good story.

Business value $$

Set 1





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ID / Location A-10 / Warsaw

Title Victim Description Introduce the character of the victim. She is a

beautiful woman. Describe her character.

Acceptance criteria There must be at least two character attributes. Write this part from observer (third party) perspective.

Business value $$$$

Set 1


Title The Place

Description Describe location. It must be strange and hostile.

Acceptance criteria There must be at least 4 named details which builds climate of the place.

Business value $$

Set 1


Title Panic

Description Introduce new character. She is scared. Her life is in danger

Acceptance criteria There must be clear information about danger. It must be serious danger.

Business value $$

Set 1





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ID / Location B-1 / Gdańsk

Title SMS Description Somebody gets mysterious SMS

Acceptance criteria It must be SMS from one of the other characters.

Business value $$

Set 2

ID / Location B-2 / Warsaw

Title Storm

Description The weather is getting worse. The storm is causing the situation to change dramatically.

Acceptance criteria Two characters must be involved. They must meet outside.

Business value $$

Set 2

Id B-3

Title Dialogues

Description Add two dialogues to already written situations.

Acceptance criteria One dialogue must change story in Gdańsk, second must change story in Warsaw.

Business value $$$

Set 2





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Id C-1

Title Phone call Description Introduce phone call between killer and victim.

Acceptance criteria It must change previously written situations in the story. It must impacts parts of the story written by both teams (changing only one team part is not acceptable).

Business value $$$

Set 3

Id C-2

Title Late night meeting

Description Killer and victim meets in Moscow

Acceptance criteria They must meet in shopping center. She must wear nice dress. Modify already existing parts of the story and add information about planned trip to Moscow.

Business value $$$$

Set 3

Id C-3

Title Murder

Description Describe murder through the eyes of a killer.

Acceptance criteria Impress me

Business value $$$$

Set 3



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