Agile Open Northwest kicked off this morning, and the whole Agile Learning Labs crew is here. Chris hosted a session called “An Experiential Intro to Agile” in the first time slot. Sixteen folks new to agile gathered and we quickly discovered a common theme: participants were about to join agile teams, but didn’t know what to expect. Out came the rubber balls and we dove into the Self-Organizing Ball game.
The topics that this surfaced included:
- The value of short iterations to to allow productive “trial and error”
- How effective retrospectives generate continuous improvement
- Time-boxing can push a group towards productive chaos, while protecting it from prolonged unproductive chaos.
- The way a shared goal can unite a team, and focus the energy and self-organization
It was a lot of fun, and a good start to one of my favorite conferences.
Cheers,
Still remember when Chris ran this for my company. The team was still talking about how to optimize the process an hour later, over lunch.
It’s a great little intro game.
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