The Scrum Value Simulation – Condensed

While attending training by Jeff Sutherland I had the opportunity to try Joe Little’s Scrum Penny Game which I believe did a good of showing the importance of small batches. Recently I was tasked with training a new Sprint team and was given 1 day to do it. I needed to come up with quick interactive examples of Lean principles. While searching the great cloud of information I found 2 good examples.

• Peter Stevens blog “Scrum Breakfast” had a great game under the heading of “The Scrum Value Simulation”
• Karen Greaves blog has a modified version under the heading of “The Scrum Penny Game – a modification”

I created a variant of the Scrum Value Simulation that compressed the steps:

Supplies Needed:

• 20 pennies per group
• Team of 4 coin flippers
• 1 PO that times how long it takes all 4 coin flippers to get through their batch of coins.
• Start the clock on the first coin flip by the first coin flipper
• Stop the clock on the last coin flip of the last coin flipper
• 1 time recorder (PO’s Boss)

Game Setup:

• Have the coin flippers stand around a table
• Put 20 pennies in front of the first coin flipper
• PO stands by with a stop watch to time how long it takes for all the coins to be flipped by all 4 coin flippers.
• PO’s Boss stands at the Whiteboard ready to record the time from the PO after each round

Game Play:

• Round 1: Baseline (batch size 20)
• Team may only use their left hand
• Each person flips the batch of 20 pennies
• When done with entire batch, pass to next person 
• Round 2: Reduce batch size to 5
• Team may only use their left hand
• Each person flips batches of 5 pennies and then passes the batch to next person before starting the next batch
• Keep flipping and passing until done
• Round 3: Remove impediment (batch size still 5)
• Team can use both hands
• Each person flips batches of 5 pennies and then passes the batch to next person before starting the next batch
• Keep flipping and passing until done
• Round 4: Self organize
• Each table creates their own rules to maximize penny flow/throughput in least amount of time
• Possibly making batch size 1?

Game Results:

Round	Time Worked
1	1 minute 37 seconds
2	1 minutes 5 seconds
3	36 seconds
4	23 seconds

Lessons Learned:

No one wears a watch anymore. Luckily everyone has a cell phone and most have a stop watch feature.

• Smaller Batches (shorter iterations)
• Smaller batches mean more value is delivered and workers can spend more time working as they are working concurrently.
• The first value is delivered earlier to the customer
• Removing Impediments
• Removing impediments mean that more value is delivered without the team working any longer. They are just more effective.
• Rugby approach over Relay Race
• Self organization, it is better to go the distance passing the ball back and forth

I was surprised that the team “really” liked the game and was quick to grasp the principles, especially the principle of small batches.