Agile Games for the New Normal

Interactive and engaging activities for remote teams and workshops...

About Agile Simulations


Like many Scrum Masters, Coaches, Facilitators and other agilists, we're great fans of gamification to get agile concepts across. There's nothing quite like getting the lego out to explore team dynamics or sitting the C-suite round a table with a set of coins to demonstrate outcome-driven delivery.

However, with more people likely to be working remotely going forward, how will facilitation change? With easier access to online video calling, it is certainly possible to facilitate these activities, but what are we missing by not doing activities face-to-face? There are many existing electronic whiteboards and collaboration tools, e.g. Miro - and we would recommend these for many situtaions - but our approach is slightly different

This is what we set out to explore; how close can we get to the face-to-face experience online?

Pricing


Free Version

If the spririt of sharing and giving back to the agile community, feel free to use the games/sims on this site for your own interest, or as part of your (permanent, employed) role - we want to help spread the messages that these apps illustrate, so go for it.

However, please check out the paid version panel for situations where we believe it would be fairer for you to pay - we have expended a lot of time and effort on this, so we don't think it's fair for people to use the apps purely for their own benefit.

Also check out some of the extra features of the padi version; most games don't contain any organisation- or -game-specific information, but most information is viewable to everybody in the free version, so consider a paid version if you want to use real data

If you want us to faciltate sessions, or train you how to do it, do get in touch here, and we can discuss your needs.

Collaboration

We are keen to collaborate, whether you want to use our apps to develop training courses/modules, or other services, or to buld specific in house apps for your organisations. Just drop us a line here and we can discuss further. We have a platform that allows rapid development of ideas, and we're keen to flex it!...

Ice Breakers and Agile Activities

The Coin Game

Explore different delivery strategies and see why delivering highest value first is the best risk-reduction strategy. See this LinkedIn blog post for a full description, and details of how to faciltate in person. Probably th simplest way to demonstrate an agile mindset, so perfect as an ice breaker for any group at any level in the organisatin, from C-suite to dev team.

#coingame

Context Switching

It is estimated that a 30 second interruption can cost an hour of lost time, particularly for people working in high-knowledge areas like software development or UI design. This simple simulation quickly shows the effect of context-switching on performance.

#contextswitching

We are constantly on the lookout for agile games and activities we can build to bring the remote experience as close to the face-to-face one as we can.

Do get in touch if you any ideas or sugestions for games or activities we could build.

Agile Games

All the games and simulations are highly interactive, and can be played in real-time across any number of remote locations. Players play on their own machine which keeps them engaged and interested. Hopefully, it's as close to playing round a table as you can get online...

Planning Poker

The classic estimation game, but in an intuitive, fully featured format. Includes standard and custom estimation types (e.g. fibonacci, t-shirt, fruit, etc.), backlog import and export, multiple teams, and many other features.

#planningpoker

The Coin Game

Explore different delivery strategies and see why delivering highest value first is the best risk-reduction strategy. See this LinkedIn blog post for a full description, and details of how to faciltate in person. Probably th simplest way to demonstrate an agile mindset, so perfect as an ice breaker for any group at any level in the organisatin, from C-suite to dev team.

#coingame #valuefirstdelivery

Agile Battleships

Thanks to James Scrimshire for inventing this one and letting us build the online version.

The classic battleships game with an agile twist! Thsi version demonstrates the value of frequent and early feedback; one of the players plays "waterfall" and only sees which ships they have hit at the end of the game. The other plays "agile", and (as in the normal game) gets feedback on the success of every shot immediately after firing.

#agilebattleships #rapidfeedback

Workshops

No Estimates

Thanks to Matt Phillip for inventing this one and collaborating to build the online version.

The No Estimates game allows you to explore, in a fun and competitive way, sources of variation that render estimation inaccurate. It can be played by anything up to 50 people in 6 teams, and is an ideal way to get these concepts across to managers or directors in a remote workshop environment. Ultimately, it provides a more scientific approach to forecasting the question every PM asks - "When will my stuff be delivered?.

#noestimates

Survival At Sea

The classic "Survival at Sea" team-building exercise - you're lost at sea in a sinking yacht with a fairly random selection of items, and you have to decide which ones you should keep, and which to discard.

#survivalatsea

Kanban Explorer

If you've played No Estimates, you'll know it's based around a Kanban board, so this is a stripped-down version using the same tech. to allow you to explore Kanban concepts in a simila environment.

#kanban

Simulations

The simulations are slightly different to the other activities. These are more based around scientific(-ish) simulation of the effectiveness of agile teams using different ways of working. More explanation here

Interdependent Teams

In any reasonably sized organisation, there will be dependencies between teams. So what is the best way to prioritise cross-team work? See this video from Agile Cambridge 2017 for an explanation.

The conclusions might surprise you.

#interdependentteams #agilecam2017

Pairing

Pairing is usually touted in XP terms as a way to improve code quality through practices like TDD. However, it is a great way to increase knowledge sharing, and therefor reducing risk of silos, and for cementing a common vision, approach, goals and practices. But does it take longer to develop using pairing? This simulation allows you to explore the true costs and benefits of pairing.

#pairing

We are constantly on the lookout for games and simulations we can build to bring the remote experience as close to the face-to-face one as we can.

Do get in touch if you any ideas or sugestions for new games or simulations we could build.

New Stuff!

We're always looking for new ideas for stuff to build.

Check out the Agile Simulations Labs page to see what we're working on, to suggest new ideas, and to vote for your favourites!

Our architecture allows us to build new things pretty quickly, so feel to contact us to discuss your requirements...

Services


Need help? We can facilitate simulation sessions for you, or provide other agile services based around these areas.

If you want to run the simulations, each has it's own About link which explains it. If you need further help, or want to discuss how you might a demo/session, feel free to get in touch and we can provide further advice.

If you would rather we facilitated the sessions for you, get in touch. Whether it's a demo - to C-Suite or managers, or a larger audience - or an activity involving partially or fully remote teams, we are happy to do this.

We do not provide full-time agile coaches, but we are happy to come in and get you started on your agile journey using the simulations and other materials to get the points across. We are happy to work on a consultancy basis, visiting on a regular basis to observe, review and suggest as you continue on your transformation.

RESOURCES


Many of the simulations are explored in more detail in various blog posts, conference presentations, and elsewhere. Links to these are provided in a handy list below, along with some other relevant resources...

The Coin Game blog post on LinkedIn
The The Coin Game from one of Chris Stone's excellent Agile Arcades
Interdependent Teams simulation presentation at Agile Cambridge 2018
Agile Z-Day presentation of the Coin Game and No Estimates
An agile reading list
Other interesting blog posts on LinkedIn

CONTACT

Steve Wells