Well… maybe now is the time 😁 I’ve always wanted to explore some thoughts that came up during my eight years of navigating the dynamic Agile landscape. Never found the time for it, but now there are no more excuses.
As ‘I’m here for the first time,’ I start with something innocent but useful. Hopefully, it can’t go wrong 😆. I want to briefly introduce you to the game I designed some years ago for my teams. I found that to be powerful at the start of a team’s way of working change adventure, but it works well at any point in the journey. I named it ‘Beat the Scrum Master.’
| The point of the game is to let the team speak through all the doubts and haziness they have in team agreements and points behind routines. It also lets us check how well we coached the team – that encourages the team to ask tricky questions, which will bring deeper discussions on all the topics of your way of working. That’s why it’s ‘Beat the SM.’ I always try to let the team ‘win’ (isn’t that fun? 🙂), so I save the most complicated questions for last and try to stay very demanding on answers explanation. |
📋 All you need is a whiteboard. Optionally, you may create prompts with topics and hashtags to remind the team of possible areas of discussion. Start by explaining to the team that they have to (1) list questions about the team’s way of working (agreements, events, routines, roles, etc., including WHY?) or areas they feel are unclear. Then, (2) list really challenging and tricky questions in those same areas for a good try at earning points and encouraging meaningful discussions.
🚫 It’s not obligatory to limit the questions per person, but you may do so to manage time effectively. Play the moderator role, picking questions in order of their potential impact. Keep the game within the team’s working domain, emphasizing that it’s fun, but questions creation should be taken seriously.
⏯️ When questions are created, and you’ve agreed on how to choose who answers, start the game: take questions one by one, let the team answer (multiple and even controversial answers are allowed—encourage discussions!), then share points 🧮:
– Right answer: 1 pt
– If a team can’t answer: 2 pts (to person who asked)
– If no one can answer (including SM): 10 pts (to person who asked)
SM receives:
* 1 pt per each team answer (a nod for coaching well)
* -7 pts if nobody from the team can answer (ouch, missed that explanation)
* -15 pts if SM cannot answer (don’t take it too seriously, we cannot know everything 😉 )
Usually, we end with great Action points as well. But even if you don’t, the thorough discussion of your working agreements and reasons behind them is close to priceless — Kanban calls it “Making Policies Explicit.”