As I was teaching about the principles of Agile, a question came up from one of my participants about the compelling reason to play games in Agile and what are the essential games. The foundational element of Agility is self-organization in the teams. The expectation is that the team is empowered to ask powerful questions and enabled to act in a way conducive to deliver on product strategy. To emulate this self-organization, games are generally recommended as people's creative juices come in when you infuse fun ways of working.
I reasoned that among the many games (Tasty Cups, n.d.) to play based on the specific challenge to be addressed, every game is analogous to medicine! Not all medicines treat the symptoms well; based on specific patient chemistry, what works for one (ibuprofen for headache) may not work for another! So, diligence is required to select the right game based on the level of team maturity, self-organization, and cross-functional expertise. Just like any game, the more you practice, the more you get better at the play.
In general, there are four ceremonies. These are Iteration Planning, Daily Standup, Review and Retrospective. There is also a backlog refinement (that some call backlog grooming) which is required to refine and prioritize stories in preparation for the iteration planning. So, here are some games that can apply to one or more of these ceremonies.
Given below is a quick summary of what games apply to what scenarios followed by detailed explanation. I am sure there are many others that can be played. But these games are more than enough, in my humble opinion, to get Agility working in the teams.
| Game Name | Backlog Refinement | Iteration Planning | Daily Standup | Review | Retrospective |
| Product Box | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Buy a Feature | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Prune the Tree | Maybe | Yes | No | No | No |
| Paper Airplanes | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Daily Scrum Game | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Matchup Canvas | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Speed Boat | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Mad, Sad, Glad | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Pass on Perfection | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Feedback Game | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Product Box: The goal of this game is to simulate the functionality that is minimally required to be released. It appears a long time back that people used to buy software that came in a CD wrapped within a box. It would give details about the minimum system requirements, major features, details around customer support, and helpful documentation using up all the six sides of the box! The product box comes with the same notion of asking the stakeholders and team to prioritize minimally required features for a release by allowing people to place these features on a blank product box canvas. It can be used in backlog refinement and on the release (MVP) /iteration planning (MMF/MBI).
Buy a Feature: The goal of this game is also to help stakeholders align on priority. Every stakeholder will be given a certain amount of virtual currency (or virtual points). Each feature (not one story but a feature) will be given a price (or point) depending upon the complexity and/or size based on the team's input. The stakeholders can then use their money to buy the most important feature they need (just like how we don't waste money on every frivolous thing but on the necessary things alone). People change the rules of the game sometimes where stakeholders can pool their money to buy a feature when they don't have enough left to buy a feature or restrain such money-pool recommending 'use it or lose it but not combine it!'. This is also a good game for backlog refinement, release, and iteration planning.
Prune the Tree: This game lets team members position various features and other experiments based on priority or value to the customers/business. This game can be used by the team to engage in more powerful questions on the customer's actual needs based on the priorities and unearth the actual needs and differentiate the nice to have from the must to have just like a tree is pruned. The goal is to validate the minimum needs, prioritize accordingly, and come up with the other use cases (technical value, process value) to ensure that these customer value stories can be delivered. This game is primarily beneficial in iteration planning.
Paper Airplanes: This game is more about how people practice agility! The goal is not what anyone can do (regardless of the role like the product owner, coach, developer, tester, etc.) but what everyone collectively can deliver. That's the idea behind how everyone can support creating how many flying paper planes that fly past a certain boundary can be created. The game brings that together everyone achieves more (TEAM) mentality. It is ideal for daily standup.
Daily Scrum Game: This game helps the team member to understand certain behavioral patterns people may have and how they will identify and collaborate in such a place. The goal is furthermore to understand the failsafe environment. In this game, the agile coach asks some team members to assume certain behavioral patterns (monopolizing conversations, refusing to give feedback, etc.) and asks the team to practice playing the daily stand up that must be finished in the time allocated. Then, they discuss if they were able to identify the persona people took and how they should work with such disruptive patterns if displayed.
Matchup Canvas: This game is frequently a good one when the team is in the early stages of Agile team (Like Forming, Norming). The goal is to conceptually think of ourselves having a "business card" that displays who we are and what we bring to the table in the team. For example, the card canvas can have our name, goals, what you offer (skills, knowledge, help) or can't offer but willing to learn, who can benefit from your skills and competencies, what you need from others and where you will go for help. If such a card is placed on your cube (or part of your signature for virtual teams), it would help people when they need support or guidance.
Speed Boat: This game focuses on learning! The analogy here is that a speed boat can accelerate going forward, stall not making progress, or decelerate going slow or receding backwards. The logic here is to extend this to say what are we doing that helps us progress faster and deliver on commitments, what we should stop that does not add value, and what we should do that will helps us pick up pace! Sometimes, we also call this 'keep doing,' 'start doing,' and 'stop doing.' Another variation of this game is also called "mad, sad, glad" which associates with being mad about what happened (stop doing this), being somewhat sad about what happened (start doing something to avoid this), and glad about what happened (keep doing what we are doing). This game is applicable in both the review and retrospective ceremonies.
Pass on Perfection: This game is about giving feedback. The game emerges from the coaching principles of using "Yes, And" rather than "No But". So, when someone says something and you have an alternative view, instead of saying "No this will not work but if you do this it might work," you change your approach. "Yes, I can see how this will work and if you consider this it might work better!"
Feedback Game: This game is also about giving feedback. In fact, it is about practicing to give/receive feedback. The goal is not to be always clever and all-knowing but also to be modest and be on the receiving end of feedback. The game is played with a pile of cards (carefully chosen with questions or scenarios). Each person takes a card, chooses to keep the card and answer the question or the scenario with opportunities to hear what they could have done differently. If the person chooses not to keep the card, the person can pass it to others who can then choose to keep it. The game ends when all the pile of cards are answered.
Tasty Cup Cakes (n.d). https://tastycupcakes.org/)
