The Effects of Work Habits Around Agility Through Simulations

The Effects of Work Habits
Around Agility
Through Simulation

Agenda
• Why we do promote Self-Organization
• The effectiveness of Collaboration
• The impact of Multi-tasking
• The relationship of Optimization, Prioritization,
Throughput, Impediments, Métier, Utilization,
and Sizing
• The impact of Management Interference
• Learning to Say No
• Understanding Each Other
– Perspectives, Mental Models, and Yes, and… Thinking

Time to Organize
• Need a volunteer! You will be the
Director.
• We’ll give you a sheet, your job is to
organize people around the tables
based on the instructions we give you.
• Ensure folks are evenly distributed at
the tables
• You may not reveal the instructions or
goal to any person.
• You are going to be timed…

Debrief
• That took ___ minutes to complete
• Director, how did that feel? What were the
problem areas?
• Participants, how did it feel to you? What
problems did you see?

Time to Self-Organize
• You are going to organize yourselves based
alphabetically on the city where your live;
where those ‘tie’, you will use the street
name, should those ‘tie’, then the street
number, and just in case we have a partner
duo in the room, then by last letter of your
first name
• Ensure folks are evenly distributed.
• You may talk and do this.
• You are going to be timed…

Debrief
• That took ___
• How did it feel to you?
• What problems did that eliminate?
• Did you see any new things to consider?

Adopting an
Introduces change for most teams
Understanding how change affects teams is important
Agile Mindset & the Practices

Status Quo
New Status Quo
disruption
amount
disruption
time
The Satir Change Curve
A detailed depiction of the Satir Change model -
http://stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/

Status Quo
New Status Quo
disruption
amount
disruption
time
The Satir Change Curve
A detailed depiction of the Satir Change model -
http://stevenmsmith.com/ar-satir-change-model/
Allow teams time to learn
Give teams
encouragement
Expect a
degradation

Collaboration:
Power of 13
Simulation
This game was created at Agile Games 2014 by –
Jamie Gaull
Robert Smith
Peter Barzdines
Bobby Zhakov
Paul Boos

Power of 13
Goal:
Work off the the number of cards equal to the number of people
within your iteration’s length
Mechanics:
• We need a ‘Scrum Master’ and ‘Product Owner’ – everyone else is
a development team member
• Each card is worked off whenever a 13 is rolled on 3 dice (~10%
chance per roll)
• The product owner will count off the number of cards completed
using a deck of cards
• The scrum master will use another suit of cards to count down your
iteration of 13 work days (3 week Sprints, the other two days are
sprint review, retro, and planning = 15 days)
• We will mark down what day you meet your goal and the total # of
cards worked off

Power of 13 :: Round 1
This round will simulate developers working alone in their
silos/cubes
• Each developer is responsible for completing a card from
the backlog
• Each developer rolls the dice once per day; the scrum
master keeps track of the 13 work days using the suit of
cards he or she has
• If a dice roll has a sum total of exactly ‘13’, they state “my
card is DONE.” The product owner turns this card over from
his stack. The developer stops work and pats himself on the
back.
• Record cards completed once all the work days are
completed or when everyone says they are ‘DONE’; also
record what day the required # of stories was completed.

This round will simulate helping others after you complete your
work
• The team is still responsible for completing at least the a
number of cards from the backlog equal to the number of
developers
• Each developer rolls the dice once per day; the scrum master
keeps track of the 13 work days using the suit of cards he or
she has
• If a dice roll has a sum total of exactly ‘13’, they state “my card
is DONE.” The product owner turns this card over from his
stack. The developer pats himself on the back; however they
may now continue to roll on subsequent days and declare
another card done for each ‘13’ they roll – identify who they
helped if someone else isn’t completed.
• Record cards were completed and what day the required # of
stories was completed.

• This round simulates collaborative swarming to
complete work
• The team is still responsible for completing at least the
a number of cards from the backlog equal to the
number of developers
• Each developer rolls the dice once per day; the scrum
master keeps track of the 13 work days using the suit
of cards he or she has
• Once each developer has rolled, they work together to
pull as many sums of exactly ‘13’ on 3 dice as possible;
each ’13’ identified equals a card worked. The product
owner turns these cards over from his stack.
• Record cards were completed and what day the
required # of stories was completed.

Collaboration:
Power of 13
Simulation
Debrief
What did you notice happening?
What did the dice/rolls represent?
How did the effectiveness change in each round?
How does or does not this correlate
with how real work happens?
How did the coordination
in the last round feel?
What did allowing a person
to continue work simulate?

Give me
Volunteers…
5
Mwhahahaha

Instructions…
• One Person is the Speller…
• The Other 4 Are the People Providing the
Words for you to Spell
• I’ll provide the words you need to provide to
the Speller for each round

Round 1
• Each Provider will SHOUTtheir word at the
Speller simultaneously
• I am going to time how long it takes the
Speller to spell the words; they must be
spelled correctly (no pressure, but they were due yesterday)
• The Providers may stop Shouting
their word once theirs is correctly
spelled.

Round 2
• Each Provider will give the 1st letter of their word
• The Speller will write this letter down starting to
spell each word
• Once each provider has given their 1st letter, move
to the 2nd letter
• We’ll continue with each letter round-robin style
until each word has been spelled
• I will time when each word is completed
• If any word is spelled wrong, the Provider needs to
speak-up and talk the Speller through what needs
to change, but NOT spell the word for them

Round 3 (You Knew There Was One Right?)
• The 1st Provider will say their word
• The Speller writes it out fully
• That Provider helps the Speller through any
corrections that need to be made
• Once it is spelled correctly, the next Provider goes
• I’ll time as each word gets completed

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 Causal Loops
Utilization
Impediments
Focus on
Priorities
Throughput
of Work
(GTD)
-
-
Size of Work
- Specialization

Interference:
Build a House
Simulation
Management:
This game is adapted from one
developed at Agile Games 2014;
didn’t catch original designer’s names.

Build a House
• In groups of 3-5, grab a set of pipe cleaners
• We’re going to simulate a single iteration where
‘management’ interference comes into play
– One person will represent management, the remainder of
you will be constructing a house
– In a moment, I will present the backlog of work to build the
house
– During the 2 minutes in which the team is building,
management will roll a die every 15 seconds, on a roll of 1-2,
they will roll 2 dice and consult the table on the sheet I will
give out. Repeats just emphasize how important the item is!
– The team is compelled to try and add in whatever
management asks for, well because who can say no to their
bosses, right?

Build a House :: Backlog
• As a homeowner, I want my home to have a
pitched roof so rain is shed off and I can stay
dry.
• As a homeowner, I want a doorway so that I can
get in and out of my home.
• As a homeowner, the house should be
rectangular, so that I can easily fit it on the lot I
have available.

Interference:
Build a House
Simulation
Management:
Debrief

Saying
No
Exercise Courtesy of Chris Sims
Agile Learning Labs

Saying No :: Round 1
• Go around and greet your fellow compatriots,
ask how they are doing.
• Then ask some question that they could
easily perform (e.g. can you tell me the
time?)
• They are to say “NO”; i.e. they won’t do it.

Saying No :: Round 2
• Go around and greet your fellow compatriots, ask
how they are doing.
• Ask them two questions,
– something that would be somewhat difficult to
perform, but not impossible (e.g. would you carry me
across the room?), and
– something they can easily perform.
– Mix the order up; sometimes easy first/
• They are to say “NO” to the difficult question and
mostly “Yes” to the easy question, though
occasionally they may say no to that too.

Understanding Each Other
…and building on each other’s ideas…

Instructions
• Separate into 3 teams
• Elect a leader
• Leader gets a goal & shares
w/team (visual sharing only)
• 1st team to arrange all chairs to
meet goal w/in 2 min wins!
NO TALKING!
Accredited
to Chris Sims

Exercise
• I’m going to present an image of people in rush
hour in NYC; I’ll have an arrow pointing to one
person.
• I want you to write down the following:
– Is this morning or afternoon rush? What gave you the
clue?
– What type of work do you think that person does &
why you thought that?
– What do you think that person is thinking?
– If you were given $1000 to help that person in some
way other than giving it directly to them, how would
you go about doing it? Why did you select this choice?

The Effects of Work Habits Around Agility Through Simulations

Exercise (Again)
• I’m going to again present the same image of
people in rush hour in NYC; I’ll have an arrow
pointing to a different person.
• I want you to write down the following:
– What type of work do you think that person does &
why you thought that?
– What do you think that person is thinking?
– If you were given $1000 to help that person in some
way other than giving it directly to them, how would
you go about doing it? Why did you select this choice?

Next Step
• For both your responses, categorize what your
answers were into the following:
What was factual?
(What could I actually see…)
What did I infer?
(What did I believe
may be occurring…)
Why did I think that?
(Any prior event that
to led my thinking…)

Ladder of Inference
Event
How To Find Common Ground When Engineers Don’t Like Features – Teresa Torres, Jan 2013

How do we
our
beliefsfrom getting
prevent
in the way?

assumptions
Voluntarily make
explicit

“Yes and…”Utilize
thinking

Let’s Learn the Basics of Improv
Yes BUT ---
• Split into pairs
• Pick a person to start…
• For the next 3 minutes -
• That person will say something they want to do
– The other person is to contradict them and propose
something else
– ALWAYS start the sentence with “Yes, but…”
– (even better if you say “we should do” in this counter-
proposal)
Thanks to Mike Sutton
for my learning of this

Let’s Learn the Basics of Improv
Yes AND ---
• Same pairs
• Other person to start…
• For the next 3 minutes -
• That person will say something they want to do
– The other person is to add to it and propose
something additional
– ALWAYS start the sentence with “Yes, and…”
– (even better if you say “we can do” in this addition)
Thanks to Mike Sutton
for my learning of this

Debrief
• So how did you feel with the “Yes, but…”?
• Any different with “Yes and…”?
• Did you see any change in your thinking when
moving to “Yes and…”?

Please keep in touch with us…
• Awais Sheikh: asheikh@mitre.org
• Paul Boos: paul.boos@santeon.com
http://twitter.com/paul_boos

Our Walk-out Retro
As you walk out, post a set of stickies:
• What thing(s) did you learn today that you will be more conscious of..?
• What thing(s) did you disagree the most with that we talked about?
(You can share what your position is, but you aren’t required to…)
• What could we have done to make this a better experience for you?

The Effects of Work Habits Around Agility Through Simulations

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