Games
Games and simulations are a great way to learn. All of these game are available under a Creative Commons license, so you can freely use and remix them.
The XP Game
Vera Peeters and I designed "The XP Game" (also known as "The Balloon Game") to teach how release planning works in Extreme Programming. Participants learn about writing, estimating and testing requirements, making a realistic planning and using feedback to improve their planning accuracy. It effectively promotes cooperation and teambuilding. And it's fun too!You can download all the necessary information. The "XP Game Explained" article in Extreme Programming Perspectives explains some more of the reasoning behind the simulation.
The Business Value Game
Vera Peeters and I designed "The Business Value Game" to let participants experiment with different ways of prioritizing their backlog.
Agile Fairytales
The Agile Fairytales are a series of sessions based on well-known fairytales, devised by Portia Tung
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall... Why me? is a mini-adventure of self-discovery to improve personal effectiveness. Here's your chance to improve the way you communicate by developing a better understanding of others and of yourself. The mirror will show you your real ability in working with others. Once you and your colleagues know more about yourselves, you can use the game to create teams where everybody plays to their strengths and help one another address each other's weaknesses.
Real Options
The Real Options Space Game is developed by Portia Tung and Pascal Van Cauwenberghe to let you experience that Real Options are very simple to learn and hard to apply under pressure. When we apply Real Options we improve the quality of our decisions.
The Bottleneck Game
The Bottleneck Game lets you experience the "5 Focusing Steps" of the Theory of Constraints. In this simulation you experience how Lean and Agile techniques help to improve processes. The techniques are immediately applicable to real-world cases. At the end of this session you might have a complete management briefing on how to improve the way you work.
The Nine Boxes
The Nine Boxes is an interview technique from the Solution Selling sales process. This simple technique allows you to discover the real problems your customers and users face. At the end of the interview you and your interviewee understand the root causes of the problem, have a shared vision of the solution and are ready to start solving the problem. You can translate the output of a 9 boxes interview directly into "User Stories".
Contact us if you want to know more or need help in organizing any of these sessions.