When & What

This is a great game when introducing iterative ways of working, such as Scrum. It highlights the benefits not only of early feedback loops, but also the importance of collaboration, self-organisation and working together as a team. While observing the game, you can learn a lot about the team’s communication and collaboration patterns. It can also be a fun way to create a better understanding of flow and sustainable pace.

Preparation

1. Prepare a virtual board
2. (Optional) Run a warm-up activity to prepare those virtual fingers and make sure everyone’s got the hang of the tool.

Steps

1. Ask the team to select or create avatars (photos, icons, etc.).
2. Let the group place their avatars in a circle on the virtual board.
3. Introduce the goal of the game — Pass as many balls through the group as possible within two minutes, working as one big team.
4. Introduce the rules:
   • Each iteration lasts 2 minutes.
   • 2 minutes for retrospection between iterations.
   • Every ball must return to the person who introduced it, who puts it to Done.
   • Each ball must pass through every team member’s bucket.
   • Only you can move a ball out of your bucket.
   • You can only move the ball to an empty bucket
     (unless it has passed through the entire team)
   • Only one ball is allowed in a bucket at a time.
   • The ball cannot be passed directly to the person next to you.
5. Highlight that having more than 1 ball in a bucket at the same time means it’s out of play and not counted.
6. Inform the team about the number of iterations (3 is recommended).
7. Give them 2 minutes to discuss the strategy for the first iteration.
8. Ask them to estimate the number of balls they will get through the system in the first iteration, and write it down.
9. Start the first 2-minute iteration and reiterate the rules if necessary.
10. Ask the team to count the completed number of balls and record the actual number next to the estimated number.
11. Give the team 2 minutes to retrospect and discuss improvements for the next iteration.
12. Repeat steps 7-11 until all iterations are completed.
13. Debrief with the team to gather insights, reinforce benefits through early feedback, and draw parallels to their current work situation.

Debrief

Ask the group questions to find out what they learned/observed and to reinforce the benefits of early feedback, collaboration, and sustainable pace.

Iterative ways of working and feedback

• What changes did you see between the iterations? How did the first and last iteration differ?
• How important was the time to retrospect?
• How many balls do you think you would have had completed if you had run for 6 minutes straight, without stopping to retrospect and readjust the process?

Flow

• Is everyone familiar with the concept? If not, give a brief explanation of flow.
• What iteration felt best/worst and was most/least productive?
• How did working faster impact the actual output numbers?

Collaboration

• How did you think you worked as a team?
• Did everyone feel like their ideas and feedback got heard?
• Did anyone take charge, and did this change during the iterations?

During your debrief, don’t forget the very useful follow-up question why?.

Extra tips

General tip

After the game, continue to refer back to the activity when talking about feedback, flow etc.

Bonus run — The unachievable goal

1. Run a bonus iteration to highlight the benefits of sustainable flow and the risks of setting unachievable goals and deadlines. Tell the team something like “The last time I ran this game, the group completed 142 balls (e.g. make up a number around 3-4 times as large as they have achieved so far). You need to beat that!”
2. Continue to put pressure on the team during the iteration by pointing out how far from the goal they are.
3. Observe — Look out for changes in the communication and quality (eg more balls being dropped or rules not being followed).
4. Afterwards, debrief with questions around how they felt and their stress levels. Compare the defect rate and actual output with previous iterations.

Bonus run — The achievable/stretch goal

You can also do a bonus run with an achievable goal, slightly higher than the best results so far. Make sure the team agrees that it is doable. You can use this to highlight that some pressure is actually likely to increase productivity, in contrast to unachievable goals or no goal at all.

What you need

Creator/credits

Boris Gloger