Agile Game  – Own Path Over 20 Years

I am Timofey Yevgrashyn. Most likely, we met before, or you found my project, Scrum Card Game, that helps to teach Scrum method. If we didn’t meet before, I’m a Lean-Agile expert with consulting, coaching, and training expertise; I started my IT management path over 26 years ago. 

Agile is the trend that I could not miss. Since 2001, I’ve been experimenting with ways of organizing my teams, and at some point, I started working in an iterative-incremental approach with a minimal set of practices, and then someone said:” This is called Scrum Method.” In 2005, I began to study all the additional nuances of different Agile methodologies and implement them in my teams. While mastering all the subtleties of my projects, I started to help others conquer their peaks. I help companies to understand the principles and master their own approach inspired by specific sets of practices, such as Scrum, XP, Kanban, SAFe, LeSS, Scrum-at-Scale.

When I just started to teach Scrum method and principles of Agile development, I realized that the theory is easily forgotten. It is easier to learn from your own experience. This is how I needed a Scrum game. 

ScrumCardGame – is my simple and realistic simulation of Scrum method in action.

A team could play to learn more about challenges and approaches possible with the Scrum method.

The essence of the game is to gain work experience in Scrum going through the stages of Sprint,  Planning and Work within Iteration, meeting with the most realistic surprises. Based on this experience, teams draw conclusions and learn during 3 sprint iterations.

Scrum method  – The Key Technique Among  Businesses

Agile has gained a competitive edge among varied businesses today.

In software development teams, Scrum has emerged as the most popular way of navigating a complex goal.

The Agile way of handling projects to be 28% more successful than traditional projects and almost 71% of organizations use Agile with varying frequencies. 

So what makes Scrum so successful and why are project managers solely relying on it or are using it in combination with other frameworks? The reason behind it is simple. A Scrum framework helps teams to work together and structure the work.

How Scrum Resolves The Pain Points?

Rapidly Changing Requirements

Software development teams are often faced with changing requirements and unrealistic time frames.

Scrum method helps you manage the rapidly changing demands of teams via empirical experience. Some demands change very fast and some wouldn’t change through the whole project.

Scrum Card Game allows you to work out all possible situations in life together with your team in order to meet all unexpected requirements. The set of chance cards such as Problem blocks your story and prevents it from being done. You should discuss each problem case and decide if in real life you would apply such a solution to this kind of problem.

Backlog Pain

Scrum method allows you strike a balance between the demand for change and the necessity for a stable development environment.

Product Backlog Management is all about prioritization. 

Scrum Card Game  provides an opportunity to work out and analyze tasks in the backlog with your team.

The set of story cards that form the backlog in the game are as if have been prioritized and estimated by the team.

A team experiences three Scrum Sprints with a normal iteration cycle Plan-Do-Reflect. Each Sprint is three-day-long to simplify learning.

It will help you to estimate what exactly you can deliver in the next 3 days iteration.

Sprint Backlog Management

After the product owner sets the objectives for the sprint, the development team members determine the Sprint backlog.

The product backlog items help achieve the goals of this sprint. This helps to extract the right amount of work into the sprint.

Scrum Card Game allows you to select a story to work on during the sprint, roll 2 dice to determine the number of productive hours for you and your team. You can resolve the challenges of estimation while planning the next sprint and cooperating with your team.

Sprint Retrospective 

The sprint is over after 3 passed turns,  you can calculate the actual Done stories, compare the actual result with planned one, review undone work and discuss with your team, retrospect on how to perform in the next sprint to achieve more. 

A Sprint Retrospective helps in increasing quality and effectiveness. It takes place after end of Sprint as far as people, relationships, processes, and tools are concerned.

Scrum Method Makes Project Management Truly Unique

Scrum as a process framework deals with project priorities, changes, prioritizing, and managing project management challenges. It focuses on both, delivering quality and value to the customer, and completing the project within the given constraints.

ScrumCardGame™️ demonstrates the use of the Scrum method at the team level and introduce the basic practices like Team Planning, Work within iterations, Sprint Review + Retrospective as well as Debriefing after the game. You will deal with project priorities, changes, prioritizing, and managing project management challenges. It helps to prepare for the real life situations during the sprint.

Are you running workshops or just playing with your team? This game is a perfect aid to run your Scrum workshops online to teach how to practice Scrum & Agile remotely! All you need is to put a team together and launch the ScrumCardGame.

The platform is fully available in offline and online versions.

You can use a printed set or download a guide with self-printable cards included or play online with your team inviting participants with a link.