Optimus Prime: a Game to understand the relationship of Optimization, Prioritization, Throughput, Impediment removal, Metier, Utilization, and Sizing

Simulating
(OPTIMUS)
Optimization, Prioritization,
Throughput, Impediments,
the Relationship
between
Métier, Utilization, and Sizing
Optimus Prime
aka

Optimus Prime
Goals:
Understand how choices on what people work on and how these decisions
impact a team’s delivery of stories (or tasks).
Overview of the Game:
Optimus Prime is a cooperative worker placement game where the team’s
Iteration (Sprint) Board is the game board.
The set-up simulates chartering and release planning where the team is
selected and the number of stories and their overall story points are
determined.
Iterations (Sprints) are the turns of the game where the work to be
completed during delivery is cooperatively selected during the Iteration
(Sprint) Planning. It ends with an Iteration (Sprint) Review/Retrospective.
Within the Iteration turns are daily rounds consisting of the team pulling
work to be done and placing their workers (during daily stand-up) on the
stories or impediments to be worked and then performing the work by
pulling cards from the Productivity or Impediment Deck as appropriate.

Optimus Prime
Supplies (and what they represent):
• Flipchart, Blue tape and stickies; some very small to record
points, and some 3x5 sized
• One set of pawns (chess pawns), one larger pawn (king or
queen) to represent the product owner, and a pawn that
represents a specialist (bishop, knight, or rook); these are the
folk that do the work [different colored pawns also work]
• A set of tokens in 3 different colors to indicate blocked work
due to impediments; one color represents only work a product
owner can resolve, one color represents only work a developer
can resolve, and the last anyone
• One additional token to keep track of the days we work in our
iteration.
• Two standard dice for determining story points, story points,
and # of split stories

Supplies, continued (and what they represent):
• Three card decks (preferably with different designs)
– One deck, the Story Deck, represents the stories to be worked
in the release (suits are all that matter as they represent Epics
or Features to be completed). We don’t need Jokers in this
deck.
– One deck represents work (in points) completed by workers;
this is the Productivity Deck. It also controls when impediments
show up. It I preferable that this deck be one with 3 Jokers,
though 2 can suffice. The Jokers represent impediments only a
product owner can resolve, Suicide Kings represent only
impediments a developer can resolve, and Jacks represent
impediments anyone can resolve. For the remainder, the value
of the card is the # of points worked (1-10, Queens = 12, Kings
= 13). Impediment cards (Jacks, jokers, and Suicide Kings) never
remove points of work.
– We’ll only use the Jokers, Kings, Queens, and Aces from the last
deck as our impediment removal deck; place the rest aside;
Jokers & Aces indicate the impediment is not removed, while a
King or Queen remove the impediment; Aces from this deck =
Epic/Feature priority

Optimus Prime
Chartering & Release Planning/Set-up:
• Use the blue tape and stickies to mark out our release backlog, sprint
backlog, in-work, and done columns as a work board
• We’re going to start with a simulation of an un- or mis-prioritized
backlog;
– Create the story deck; for each suit, roll two dice and add one to the roll;
the result is the # of cards to add to the story deck from that suit. This is
done four times, once for each suit; count out the cards from Ace  King.
– Shuffle the story deck and deal out into the release backlog face up
• Determine the size of the development team, consult the following
table after rolling two dice and then add one for the product owner:
• Place our team (pawns) above the board; select someone to represent
the product owner.
Die Roll 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Dev Team
Size
4 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 8 8 8

Chartering & Release Planning/Set-up (continued):
• Determine what the priority order of the Epics/Features for the
release are; roll two dice and consult the following table:
• Reroll repeats
• Once 2 are
selected, you only
need one die
• Suits =
Epics/Features
• Record this
order with the
Aces from the 3rd
deck
We’ll be setting due dates based on this order…
Die Rolls 1-3 4-6
1-3
4-6
-- 1st Die --
--2ndDie--

Release Planning/Set-up (continued):
• The flipchart will be used to record our release burndown; we need to
determine the # of points each story has; roll two dice for each story and
consult the following table:
• Record these on small stickies and place on each card
• Sum the total and record this on your flip chart
• The # of available work days for your project is calculated by the
following formula:
# work days = [Σ(story points) ÷ (team size x 5.4)] + 1d6 - 1 for a mgmt reserve
5.4 is mathematically the average of points each person can work per day
• As a team, decide how long you want your iterations. Make a row of
boxes on a sheet of paper for the # of days in your iteration and blacken
one for your ceremonies
# of iterations for your project = Round to nearest integer (# days ÷ iteration
length)
Record this as your horizontal axis on your chart and show a linear burn of
story points per iteration (this is your initially planned burn).
Die Roll 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Release
Story Pt
Value
3 5 5 8 8 13 13 13 21 21 34

Release Planning/Set-up (continued):
• Due dates for each suit are now set; the suits are due at
iteration end in rising priority from last to first iteration. If the
1st suit is due first iteration end, place it in the second iteration
and slide the 2nd and 3rd priorities back; making the 3rd and 4th
both due in the last iteration.
Examples:
Suppose the order was and there are only
four 3 week iterations; then the would be due at the end of
the 2nd, the at the end of the 3rd, and the and at the
end of the 4th iteration
If there were six iterations 2 weeks in length, then the due
dates would be the end of 3rd through 6th iteration in order
• Use blue tape to hold the Ace cards below the iteration they
due on the burn chart
• Shuffle the work deck and shuffle the impediment removal
deck; place work deck above the in-work column and the
impediment removal deck below it
You are now ready to start doing your iterations!

Optimus Prime
Iterations/Game Play:
• Each Turn starts with the Iteration (Sprint) Planning
Phase:
– Select candidate stories to commit to for a sprint (hint: as a
team develops a velocity, use this)
– These go from the release backlog into the sprint backlog
– To start with, we are going to assume the stories in the
release backlog have been prioritized; in the first sprint or
two, we are not goingto change this order within the Sprint
– Decide if you want to split any of the stories or not. If you do,
roll a die; divide the die roll by 3 rounded to the nearest
integer (die roll result: 1=0, 2,3&4=1, and 5&6=2). Add +1 if
you are splitting a 13 point story, +2 if the original story is a
21 point story, and +3 if the original story was 34 points. The
result is the # of stories to add to the original story.

• Continuing with the Iteration (Sprint) Planning
Phase:
– If you split a story, determine the new story points
for each story using the following table:
– You may further split a story that has already been
split; subtract one from the size die roll if you do so
– As a team, decide when to stop pulling stories and
make a commitment for the Iteration (Sprint).
Die Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Split
Story Pt
Value
1 2 3 3 3 5 5 5 8 8 8 13

• Daily Round Phase:
– Daily Stand-Up: the players now collectively review what they
were able to accomplish the day prior, what they want to
work on the next day (and place their pawns), and what
impediments they want to remove (assigning pawns to it).
– Once the stand-up is completed, it’s time to do work! Draw a
card one by one from the productivity deck for each pawn
assigned to a story to work, mark off the points the card
shows from the story points on the stickyWhen an a Jack,
Joker, or Suicide King is drawn, place an impediment marker
on the card. No further work can be done on this story today;
any workers on it lose their ability to play a Productivity card.
 Suicide Kings indicate impediments that only a developer
can resolve, Jokers are ones only the product owner can, and
Jacks any worker may be assigned.
– Workers assigned to an impediment will draw from the
impediment removal deck; when a King or Queen is drawn,
the impediment is removed. Aces and Jokers keep the
impediment in place.

• Some notes on the Daily Round Phase:
– When a card is completed and there are points
remaining, the worker may go work on another story, the
remaining points minus one may worked off another
story. If no stories are in the in-work column another
story can be pulled from the Sprint backlog. If there are
no stories in the Sprint Backlog, then no further work can
be done.
– If there happens to be two workers working an
impediment and the first worker removes the
impediment, the second worker can begin working on
that story and draw a card from the Productivity deck,
subtracting one point of what ever the value is that is
drawn. The worker can also go work on a different card,
but subtract two points from the card’s value (a negative
number is treated as zero).
– If either deck runs out of cards, take the discard pile and
reshuffle it.

• Iteration (Sprint) Review Phase:
– Record the story points off of the completed cards.
– Update your burn down chart based on this number.
– Reshuffle the Impediment Removal discard back in to
form a new deck regardless of whether it ran out or not.
• Iteration (Sprint) Retrospective:
– Discuss with your team mates if you need to rethink
how you pull stories for commitment, whether you need
to size them differently, or how you assign workers.
– Your facilitator may make some observations or
introduce new rules at this point.
• Return to the Iteration Planning Phase.

Optimus Prime
Debrief
Some Simulation Points
• The randomness of the
story points and splits of
stories simulates that a
team can’t control story
complexity, though they
estimate it.
• What would happen if you
pushed a team to change
their estimates? Does it
change the actual nature of
the work complexity?
• The Productivity values
simulate good days and bad
days. Every day is different.
• Can you make a person
perform better?
• Impediments,
can they take
longer than a day
to remove?

Optimus Prime
Debrief
Some Simulation Points
• Why did you you have to
assign a worker to remove
the impediment?
• What does losing a point
when moving from one card
to another represent?
• We started with a random
order on the story cards
representing poor
prioritization; has this
happened to anyone?
• The team size was
established randomly; can
you control how small or
large teams are?
• What becomes a problem
when a team becomes too
large?
• The Epics (Suits)
had a set order;
what would it
mean if these
were Projects?

Optimus Prime
Debrief
What choices did you make during release planning?
Iteration planning? How did these effect your ability to
deliver?
Did you discover anything about
story sizing that caused your team
of workers problems?
Did you discover anything about assigning
workers that either helped or hindered your
team of workers?
What other things did you notice?

Optimus Prime: a Game to understand the relationship of Optimization, Prioritization, Throughput, Impediment removal, Metier, Utilization, and Sizing

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Optimus Prime: a Game to understand the relationship of Optimization, Prioritization, Throughput, Impediment removal, Metier, Utilization, and Sizing

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