Interested in becoming a Certified ScrumMaster? Come to my next workshop!

Today, as promised, I will tell you about the exercise related to the cartoon this week (see above and yesterday for more information).

This is an exercise I normally do at a Certified ScrumMaster Workshop on the first morning of the first day; the main reason for doing this is because it drives home a lot of different points that I can then reference as the workshop continues.

It is that powerful.

And.

It is easy to do.

There are three steps to this exercise, and this is not something that I have invented alone.

Today I will talk about the three steps and tomorrow I will debrief about the different sections of what has actually occurred. This is also an example of what I do in real life (smile) with my workshops and exercises.

Step one is to break the team into “managers” (chickens) and “workers” (pigs).

They can self select. One of the first lessons with Scrum and Agile in general (smile).

This is also a good introduction to the terminology of chickens and pigs, along with their “old” versus “new” roles.

The managers are given instructions that they can only tell the worker what to do. The goal is to go sixty paces in about a minute (sometimes two depending on the number of attendees). They can tell the worker to go left, right, forward, backwards, stop, or go. They may not touch the worker.

The worker must listen to all instructions from the boss/manager without question. A pace is a regular pace and people are not allowed to skimp on any of these paces (understand?).

A few things to “prepare” for this: Setup the room beforehand with some masking tape on the floor. People are not allowed outside these boundaries. They can also (for later) represent something very important to the team — organizational constraints.

Say “start” and keep time.

One more thing (ug) — you can become a “barrier” if people are progressing too quickly. This is fun. Heh. Really.
After the time is up, have everyone stop where they are.

Most of the class does not get to sixty paces.

This is normal.

Step two in this exercise is to allow all the people to self organize and get to sixty paces.

It usually takes about thirty seconds from the time you say “start” until the time the team completes this part of the exercise.

When people are done, have them stop and raise their hands.

This third part is the beauty of the exercise and brings home some other points — of which I will write more about tomorrow. I need you to keep coming back and learning more with me!

Ask for people in the room who were born on a even day. Realistically this winds up being less than a third of the attendees.

Now.

Tell them they are blind.

And.

The team must self organize to make sure everyone goes sixty paces.

And.

Nobody can get hurt in the process.

When they are all done (keep a time limit of a minute or two again if needed), have the people sit down at their original seats.

Tomorrow I will go through the questions and answers I debrief with the attendees.

At least the beginning ones.

The lessons learned in this exercise are used throughout the remainder of the Certified ScrumMaster workshop.

Think about the questions that you may have when doing this exercise, and what, as a ScrumMaster working with a team, the implications would be.

Have a great day or evening and I will have more information tomorrow for you.

Gotta run�.Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

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