As a trainer, I have become increasingly convinced that games and simulations provide an excellent platform for learning concepts and new behaviours. I am playing and training with more and more games than ever before. It was getting hard for me to remember all the games and decide which one to use in a particular situation. (Can someone please create a public website where we can list games, rate them and tag them by the problems they solve?)

Where Games Play

Here are some of the games that I am currently use or want to use in training.

What’s with the grid?

• People – games about people learning individual skills or learning about individuals
• System - games about the team or organization
• Concepts - games primarily about teaching concepts or ideas
• “Experiencing our reality” - games the help us understand ourselves and our context

Links – People/Concepts

• Multi-tasking (10 min)
• Collaborative Origami – collaboration & communication (15 min)
• Yellow Brick Road: Fresh Insights through peer coaching (90 min)
• Pair Draw (30 min)
• 99 Test Balloons – acceptance testing (30 min)
• Go! – Your brain on Scrum (10 min)

Links – System/Concept

• The Biggest Bang for the Buck – backlog organization and prioritization – (60 min). Game I created with Gino Marckx will be released around Agile2010.
• The Backlog is in the Eye of the Beholder – organizing backlog from stakeholder view (40 min). Game I co-created at Deep Agile.
• Business Value Game – helps understand differing sources of value. (90 min)
• Marshmallow Challenge – understand benefits of incremental design (45 min)
• XPGame – Scrum variant – basics of iterative development and acceptance testing (180 min)
• Penny Game – Flow of value, process improvement (40 min?)
• Bottleneck Game – understanding process and applying theory of constraints (90 min)
• Name Game – Limit concurrent projects (10 min)
• Movers and shapers – team dynamics (10 min)

Links – System/Reality

• Ball Point Game – process improvement, teamwork – simpler than penny game (40 min)
• Value Stream Mapping – hmmm. not a game really
• Leadership Game – self-organization and leadership styles (180 min)

Links – People/Reality

• Constellations – Share team perspectives (30 min)
• Improv Games and Hypontizing hypnotist – Get better at collaboration and innovation (10 min to ?)
• Yes, And (not Yes, But) - Shift your mindset towards collaboration (15 min)
• MarketPlace – share skills with team members (30+ min)

Other thoughts

Please draw your own maps and share them!

Other games

I did not include games that have are designed to achieve and outcome such as  retrospectives, planning poker or Innovation Games® since the primary purpose is not training/teaching. These are important too.

Happy to be finally attend InnovationGames in Chicago, July 15/16.

Michael McCollough and Don McGreal ran a valuable workshop on how to create your own game. Mike and Don have been creating simple, fun games for years and have noticed an approach they follow. See TastyCupcakes for lots of great games. As a caveat, they outline one particular style of game development – simple games. This is in contrast with complex games such as XPGame and Business Value Game (which are favourites of mine).

It all starts with a problem. What do you notice going wrong? What do you want your teams to understand better?

Next come your objectives. Pick one to three things that you want the game players to learn.  For extra points you may want to consider the Dreyfus model or Bloom’s taxonomy. These were suggested by attendees. Mike and Don keep it simple.

For a while you will need to spin and loop around as you search for an idea. As this happens, it is helpful to be constrained by some principles: stick to objectives and keep it simple (KISS). Inspiration will come from material (cards, balloons, etc), as well as games in other industries. Their mantra is “Beg, borrow, steal” and them make it your own. Learn from your participants – they will tell you a lot if you listen.

Finally, summon the courage to try it (or just do it). Start as soon as possible and iterate.

And remember, the whole point is the debrief. Give ‘em space and let ‘em discover.

(This is part of a series on DeepAgile 2010 Games Weekend).

At DeepAgile in Boston, I played Yellow Brick Road: Fresh InsightsThrough Peer Coaching. The game was led by it’s inventor – Portia Tung who did a great job even with a very large group. If you haven’t played this, I suggest you make the time.

The game teaches people skills and resources to be effective coaches by practicing with peers. In the game, people take turns in one of 3 roles: Client (with a problem), Coach, and Observer.

Solve real problems

In the role of Client/Dorothy, you get to be yourself and bring up a problem that you want to work on. Over several iterations, new perspectives help you access the resources you already have. So a cool side-effect of this game is that you get fresh insights into whatever problem you want to work on.

Coach practices questions

The coach gets to practice listening and asking questions. We discovered that listening is something we need to practice since we are so used to jumping in with our expert opinion and solutions.

We also get practice with different types of questions (image by Portia Tung):

Observer provides depth

The observer roles gives you a chance to step back from the situation and really notice what is going on. Portia’s picture captures the simplicity of the task:

I was reminded that observation is a very helpful debugging technique. It is also less than easy – especially if you are like most of us and out of practice.

As the observer, I was able to get much deeper insights.

Go play this game

I am going to play this game again for myself and to help those I am coaching. The complete game instructions and presentation is available for download, so give it a go! I’m sure you will get value out of it. Even better, get Portia to come play with you so you can see some of the finer points.

(This is part of a series on DeepAgile 2010 Games Weekend).

There was a really good session at the Scrum Gathering’s Open Space on some of the challenges around the CST application process.

What I want to share here is some general thoughts on what is required to be a Certified Scrum Trainer that I noted during the open space session. This is only an excerpt on how to succeed – the full session notes are here.

(Part 4 of 5 blogs on the Scrum Gathering in Orlando)

Caveat: There is a Scrum Alliance Improvement Committee working out the new process so this is an informal look at some considerations.

See mindmap below.

It is important to get connected so that people know who you are. If you are considering co-training, find people you like. (N.B. There was some discussion of dropping Co-training requirements so you’ll have to stay tuned on this.)

What you teach when you are CST is your business, however, the evaluation process is based on you wearing your scrum hat. Not your Agile hat. Not your XP hat. Not your PMI hat. Does this mean I need to show a flock of self-organizing geese? Is it OK to share the Agile manifesto? I still don’t know the answer to these questions.

As a CST you will need to develop a curriculum with learning objectives, exercises, etc. There is no official training material that you can use as a baseline – every CST is expected to author training material.

It is important that you contribute to the Scrum Community. This can take the form of organizing a local user group, a conference. Public speaking and publishing articles and blogs is relevant as well.

The big thing I got out of this session is that no one is going to hand you the CST designation because you know Scrum and have run training sessions. Becoming a CST requires excellence and hard work.

You may also want to check out Tobias’s blog posts: So you want to be a CST?, Becoming a CST and Scrum gathering day zero for an informal perspective.

See also my post on becoming a CSC.

I am very happy to announce that Michel Goldenberg (CSM, CST) and I will be running some public training in February in downtown Toronto (Residence Inn Mariott at 255 Wellington St West).

• Certified Scrum Master Training – Feb 16 & 17
• Agile Games Day – Feb 18

This is a great chance to learn from not one but two experienced Agile coaches.  If you know anyone who might be interested, please let them know.