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AGILE RESOURCES

Agile Games

Instructions, techniques, and approaches for interactive games that provide fuel for invention and learning!

These Agile Games were originally published on Tasty Cupcakes, a community-run website founded by Michael McCullough and Don McGreal after they presented a series of games at Agile2008 in Toronto. The site’s tagline was “fuel for invention and learning.” After 15 years at TastyCupcakes.org, the content has found a new permanent home here at Agile Alliance. All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

If you’re an Agile Alliance member, you can submit and Agile Game for inclusion in this directory.

Valuable Paper Airplanes

Understand Scrum aspects like transparency (Definition of Done) and basic Scrum process of inspection and adaptation. It is based on well known Paper Airplanes game and is modified to go away from the factory of producing as many airplanes as possible towards producing airplanes that are valuable.

The MatchUp Canvas

Great teams act interdependently to achieve product outcomes. That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes deliberate effort. By proactively determining how teams depend on each other, agreements can be made […]

The Spark Engine

This game acts as an icebreaker taking people outside their comfort zone in an easy, safe way. It sparks the creative juices of team members, warming up the creative side of their brains and fostering an environment where it is ok to share ideas even if not perfect.

Sprint Simulation – Scrum Practice Game

A simple, interactive, and collaborative game to experience at a high level the ceremonies and common practices of Scrum through simulating a sprint. This game has been used as one […]

Pass on Perfection

"Pass on Perfection" is a collaborative game that combines "Yes And..." thinking and the Perfection Game concept to streamline ideas into a minimally viable set through structured discussion and consensus, developed to enhance team agreements and product development processes.

Dice Of Debt

This game illustrates the importance of dealing with technical debt. Over the course of 10 sprints, a software development team will try to deliver as much software value as possible. […]

Positive Change Canvas

The main point is that other people look at your positive stuff and propose improvements on top of that. The shifted perspective does miracles. Give it a try!

Time-Tree-Fertilizer Retro

See your past project/release in the time-tree-fertilizer metaphor which is another use of visual metaphors. This approach to Retrospectives is the most effective when you look back at a longer period of time like project or release.

The Lean-STAR Game

A short game demonstrating the negative impact of Work in Progress (WIP) through a team activity involving connecting dots to form stars, showing that reducing WIP increases efficiency and reduces delivery times.

Logo Maze (Why We Test First)

Timing 20-30 minutes Materials 1-pack of sticky notes pens for each group of 3-5 people dry erase board, table, window, or wall to set up the maze Instructions Explain to […]

Agile Jenga Testing Game

A Jenga-based game introduces agile development concepts effectively, fostering hands-on learning and understanding of agile methodologies through structured, interactive challenges.

The Scrum Gauntlet of Debt

The Scrum Gauntlet of Debt is a 30-40 minute interactive exercise highlighting the importance of refactoring in Agile development. Through a physical game, it demonstrates the risks of technical debt, emphasizing sustainable software development practices.

Story Cube Timeline

Timing Between 30 minutes and 45 minutes. Allow 5-10 minutes to debrief Materials Rory’s Story Cubes set Overview It’s a game with “story cubes” and a lot of insight for […]

The Newlywed Game

Timing 15 – 30 minutes, depending on the ensuing discussion! Overview This is a game about setting expectations.  That can be setting expectations between a coach and a team, or […]

The Penny Game

This game demonstrates the impact of batch size on efficiency, showing how smaller batches reduce overall process time despite increasing individual worker time, and encourages discussions on bottlenecks and cross-functionality.

Communication Race

Guide teams to the desired level of communication with this fun and competitive game that can be played again and again.

Questions Only

The game emphasizes how hard it is to answer a question with another question. As problem-solving human beings, we are naturally drawn to providing an answer when given a question.

Werewolf Facilitation

This game emphasizes facilitation skills through the "sheriff" role, which guides the team to reach consensual decisions, ask powerful questions, and provide direction without authority, highlighting common pitfalls and effective traits akin to a Scrum master.

Delight

This improv game requires the primary storyteller of the pair (the one NOT saying no!) to continually search for alternative possibilities for the story. This can equate to a customer who says "NO" during a product review.

Gift Box

The takeaway from this game is that "collaboration brings creativity brings collaboration."
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Additional Agile Games content is being added – please bookmark this page for future reference.

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