The end state of a highly performing Scrum team is described in the Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland as follow: ""when the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone"". Then the authors add: ""the Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum events, roles and artifacts."" We simply believe we can fast-track the development of these Agile core values through daily social games. For the past three years, we have been experimenting with half a dozen of Scrum teams, offering opportunities to play a large variety of games (board games, card games, baby-foot, etc...) during the lunch hour and after hours. The results of this experimentation have quickly exceeded our expectations. Ludo Bruyere Éric Boivin

1. Developing your
Agile skills
through social
Games

2. Eric Boivin
● Client Success Manager,
formerly developer and
teacher
● Game Master sharing his
passion in conferences
and other public speaking
events

3. Ludo Bruyere
● Scrum Mastering after
managing projects for 20 years
● Coaching employees through
the organization Agile
transformation
● Learning beyond Agile
certifications (PSM I/II and
PMI-ACP)

4. Agenda
 Let’splayagame
 Living ScrumValues
 Ourstory
 Picking upgames
 Let’splayagain
 Gamingbenefits (andpitfalls)

5. Can we use games to fast-trackthe
development of Agile core values?

6. There is a gamer in each of us

7. We learn life skills as kids through
games

8. Playingmakes learningfun

9. Spyfall
Summary
Onespy tries to guess team location
without revealing his true identity.

10. SPY: Has to guess the other
players location
All but 1 player:
Get the same
location card
Ex. Amusement
Park

11. Let's play!
Rules
You are the spy!
In the following slide,
find the location where
players are, based on
their questions and
answers

12. 1. You are the spy. Guess the location
Do you feel safe here?
Should you bring your
kids here?
What shouldn’t you
forget when leaving
here?
 Yes
 Your bags
 No!!

13. 2. You are not thespy. Guess
who is most likelythespy
We are here
Do you feel safe here?
 Yes
Should you bring your
kids here?
 No!!
What shouldn’t you
forget when leaving
here?
 Your bags
1
2
2
3
3
4

14. 3. Find questions about a
location without revealing too much
Obvious to the
players
Not so obvious to
the spy
Share with your
neighbors
Pick the best
question

15. 4. Lure thespy
Find a question that could apply to both a
Nightclub and the Airplane

16. Whatdo we likeabout Spyfall?
• Requires people to take risks
• Hard for both the players and the spy
• Very quick, allowing immediate retrospective on what
went well or not

17. LivingScrum values

18. According to the Scrum Guide...
When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness
andrespect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the
Scrum pillarsof transparency, inspection, and adaptation come
to life.

19. The Scrum Team members learn andexplore those
values as they work withScrum events, roles and
artifacts.

20. Scrum Pillars

21. Transparency - expose yourself whenforced to play
a role

22. Inspection - post mortem aftereach game
discussing what wentwellor did not

23. Adaptation - from inspection and introspection you
improve your game

24. Scrum Values

25. Courage - social, take risks, potentiallylose

26. Respect - follow rules, respect other players

27. Openness - open discussion before havingto make
a choice or vote to collaborate on best option

28. Focus - driven to play the game

29. Commitment -mustparticipate and play untilgame
is completed

30. While there is value in having Scrum objectives when gaming, we value
spontaneous gaming more.
No official objectives.
Just let people having fun.

31. Our Story

32. As often,it allstarted at thewater-cooler...

33. Éric socialized the idea with Ludo.

34. As a manager,Ludo feltuneasy about playing at work.

35. As a Scrum Master, Ludo embrace thelunch & play
experiment.

36. Éric recruited a few like-mindedpeers to getthe trialstarted.

37. Within twoweeks, theroutine was established,
coworkers were hooked,and management was
onboarded.

38. At theend, thisexperimentwas so successful thatpeople
were avoiding telecommutingto play at our lunchgame.

39. Picking upgames

40. Foster a work environmentwhere people want to
play together.

41. Work constraints
Pilot each game
● Lunchbreak: time boxed to 45 minutes
● Simple setup
● Simple to learn
● Simpletoplay
● Scale up to large groups

42. Most board games are designed for more intimate,laid-
back settings thana conference room.
Variety is key.

43. ● Cooperative and competitive games
● Team andindividual games
● Social and serious games
● Strategic and tactical games
Types of games

44. Establish game library
 Bring games from home
 Raise funding at the office
 Put games in easy to reach location

45. Successful gamingroutines
Lunch break
1. Daily vote on Slack at 11 to select lunch games
2. Create teams based on votes/preferences/availability
3. Lunch and play

46. Gateway games
 Games with simple rules
 Easy to teach
 Attract newplayers into boardgaming

47. Our top picks

48. Resistance: Avalon
Summary
Players are secretly either
trying to make quests
succeed or sabotage them

49. Movie time!

50. What do we like about
Resistance: Avalon
 Play various roles
 Read people intentions
 Good strategy and analysis

51. Card games
Summary
Traditionalandhouse-rulescardgames:
 Tarot
 Cribbage
 Skull
 Magic thegathering
 Mille bornes

52. What do we like about
Card games?
 Well-knowngames
 Relaxing
 Encouragesreplay
 Improves memory

53. Telestrations
Summary
Playersmakeatelephonegame,alternating
between drawingandwriting whattheysee

54. Telestrations
Whydowelove it?
 Creativity
 Createsstories
 Nostrategy,just simple fun

55. Codenames
Summary
2 teamscompetetoguesswordssuggested by
their teamcaptains…
… while avoidingthe wordsofthe otherteam.

56. Team captain:
Find a word that links unrelated words
together
Team: Tries to guess the words
the leader has in mind

57. Let's play again
Rules
In the following slide,
find one word that can related
to as many words as possible
Example: Cat + Police  Burglar

59. Share your best word with your neighbors

60. Now, let’s try again, but by avoiding some
words

61. Best answers?

62.  Createpeer to peer connection
 Improveverbal interaction andvocabulary
 Risk taking
What do we like about
Codenames?

63. Gaming Benefits (and
Pitfalls)

64. Team performance improvement

65. Employee retention

66. Renewenergy levels for afternoonshift

67. Increase presence at the office

68. Pitfalls

69. But you may be a victim of your own success….

70. • Too many players
• Star Games
• Requires a Game Master to
change games

71. It won’t be easy to set up in all
workplaces

72. • Very exhausting work hours
• People needing alone time
• Too many distractions

73. Developyour Agile
Personal skills

74. Improve people soft-skills

75. Develop dailyroutines

76. Create relationships

77. Learn to read people intentions

78. Playroles

79. Problem solving

80. Buildtrust

81. Buildconfidence

82. Reduce fear of failure

83. Creative thinking

84. Develop your
Agile Team skills

85. Win or lose as a team

86. Break professional barriers betweencoworkers and
management

87. Improve ways to interact with your peers

88. Improve communicationsintra and inter teams

89. Create history betweencoworkers

90. Inspect whatworks and doesn't, failfast without
consequences

91. In a nutshell…
Gamingis a very powerful tool to develop our Agile
core values

92. Thankyou!

93. Great games for the office
● Codenames
● NoThanks
● Decrypto
● SkullsandRoses
● Mascarade
● Ricochetsrobot
● Timeline
● Pandemic
● Telestration
● Hanabi
● Resistance
● Avalon
● SpyFall
● Deception:murder in Hong-Kong
● Cashandguns
● One-nightwerewolf
● Bang
● Magical Athlete
● Citadels

94. Questions?

95. Credits
● Boardgaming at your workplace
http://info.thinkfun.com/stem-education/the-benefits-of-games-in-the-workplace
http://altemagames.com/getting-your-workplace-to-embrace-board-games/
● Games suggestions
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1911672/top-150-best-gateway-games-results
● Gamification in Agile
http://www.gamification.co/2014/07/08/4-gamified-solutions-for-agile-scrum-training/
https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2014/august/agile-gamification
● Scrum Alliance
https://www.scrumalliance.org/ScrumRedesignDEVSite/media/ScrumAllianceMedia/Global
%20Scrum%20Gatherings/2017%20San%20Diego/Presentations/BodeMichael_Our-favorite-
agile-games.pdf
● Scrum Guides https://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
Pictures courtesy of Geneviève Plantin and boardgamegeek.com