Why play getKanban: experience Tutu.ru
Today I want to share the two-year experience of the game getKanban in Tutu.ru. In general, we use game mechanics quite actively: we play getKanban, Playing Lean, Lego Serious Game, etc. But getKanban, in our opinion, is the most complete and high-quality game. For us, this game has already become a tradition and a familiar tool for learning and communication. Perhaps someone from the readers will take our experience on weapons.
My name is Vadim Melnikov, and I am the technical director of tourist service Tutu.ru. In November 2014, at the Lean Kanban conference, I got into a section entirely devoted to the game getKanban. Considering my long-standing interest in Kanban as a whole, I, together with a colleague, decided to test the game. I wanted to "feel" Kanban in reality, physically feel how it differs from Scrum. In 2014, we had Scrum teams, and we were halfway between “to do agile” and “to be agile”. We carried out various activities: stand-ups, retrospectives, planning and demo. And the first two questions were asked - are they needed in this form? The game getKanban including helped to understand how to better convey the importance of stand-ups and retrospectives.
Four teams took part in the game, and it lasted for about five hours. Then it was my first immersion in Kanban and many moments became clearer: for example, how to read graphs and see the connection between the data on the graphs and the real work of the team, how to look for what can be improved and what prevents us. The first immersion experience was successful, and we decided to test the game within the company. However, this did not mean that the entire company immediately transferred to Kanban. In my experience, not all that we know is to be immediately introduced into the work. But the more knowledge we have, the more we can make analogies and take the best of the best. And since getKanban has methods that we lacked, why not take them to work?
')
Now directly about the game getKanban. The goal of the game is to manage a company that develops software and gets paid for a subscription. The task of the players is to increase the number of subscribers due to the release of various features.
Drawing game table, taken from the official website getkanban.com
The game field includes a playing field (Kanban-board with additional fields), task cards, game blocks. The tasks in the process of the game need to be solved very different: some of them are working tasks with an estimated complexity and profit, others are infrastructural support tasks with a fixed implementation period, others are completely unexpected and unpredictable (“fleeing hack”). Each task brings a certain number of subscribers in a certain formula. Game cubes replace employees (analysts, developers, testers). Each cube is one employee, and each face of the cube is the amount of work done by this employee per day.
The game is, in fact, a turn-based strategy in one-day increments. And every day there is a certain set of actions: first, at the stand-up we decide what tasks we will do during the day, then we throw the dice (the employees work). Every three days we carry out planning and demo and count the money. The entire game period is 16 days. We start from the 9th and end on the 24th.
Picture of the playing field, taken from the official website getkanban.com
At the end of each day, players open a card with an event in life or a question for discussion. For example, "speculate what will happen if the task is started sooner or later." What will change? Good or bad start earlier? Often, in real life, we don’t even think about it. If we complete one task earlier, another may suffer. Thus, an important thought is heard in the game: “Delivery on time”.
An important element of the game is graphics (Cumulative Flow Chart and Distribution Chart Diagram). These two graphics are in Kanban boards in Jira, but not everyone can read them correctly. The game helps to understand them. After each game, we open Jira and analyze real team boards. After the last game, the teams, whose boards were subjected to rapid analysis, had a long discussion about what was wrong and what could be improved. I really appreciate when after the game the guys apply their knowledge in practice, and the team does not have to work for Kanban at all. The game experience in getKanban is perfectly transferred to Scrum.
During the game, the main idea of ​​Kanban is broadcast - do not take work more than you can do. Participants of the game use visualization tools to track partially completed tasks and complete them. It is important that the features finally reach the user, because almost done bears zero benefit. Value appears only after the calculation of the problem.
In Tutu.ru, we have been playing getKanban 6 times already. Usually we play several teams of 4-5 people at each gaming table. Last time 8 teams played in parallel, which allowed to create an atmosphere of competition, evaluate the strategies of different people and significantly saved the time and energy of the organizers. In our experience, the ideal number of players in a team is 4-5 people. There are only 4 roles in the game, and when the number of players is less than four, there is no room for discussion, communication and pluralism of opinions. The game is aimed at changing the consciousness and perception, and this is impossible without full communication in the team. And if there are more than 5 participants in the team, then someone starts to “fall out” and does not actively participate in the work.
The process of preparing for the game is not laborious and requires costs only on the part of the organizers (booking and preparing the room, notifying the participants, arranging tables). The participants of the game themselves do not prepare for the game in any way.
At the game you need to lay at least 5 hours. The first hour of the game is dedicated to learning: we talk about Kanban and the process tools in general, and explain the rules of the game. An independent game in teams takes about 3 hours. We spend the last hour analyzing the results and answering interesting questions. The final discussion takes place in the tradition of pies and pizza.
In the course of analyzing the results, I ask leading questions and encourage the guys to think - I try not to voice the ready answers right away. Whenever possible, I draw analogies between game situations and real life. For example, the game has a character Pete, a developer from another team with his sprint who needs to do something for you, but does not do it very willingly and thereby reduces the effectiveness of the whole team. I give examples of real "pits" from real life. In general, there are quite a lot of amusing characters in the game, but I will not disclose details in order not to spoil the pleasure from the process.
The purpose of the game in Tutu.ru is the alignment of the information field. The principles on which Agile, Kanban, Scrum are built are universal: reducing task time in work, drawing tasks on the board, reducing the number of current tasks. You can tell all this in words. But, as our experience shows, people who played the game, see in practice how these or other decisions affect the final result. Thanks to the game, everyone starts to speak the same language: both those who have been in the company for a long time, and those who have just joined us. There is a noticeable difference between those who have already played, and who for some reason have not yet completed training: the latter have to further explain the terms.
Another goal of the game is to introduce the guys to each other, teach them to negotiate, hear and listen. When forming teams, we mix up the employees, gather in one team the guys who rarely overlap with each other in work. In the course of the game, I draw attention to potential leaders: the game shows excellent leadership skills and the ability to negotiate.
By organizing and conducting this game, I expect that as a result, less time will be spent on completing tasks, and “arriving” tasks will be more predictable. In the game, with the help of the Distribution chart diagram, you can construct the expected work time, and with the help of the proposed tools, you can reduce the average time of task execution.
Another positive result of the game: the efficiency of stand-ups increases and the motivation to use Kanban or Scrum boards increases. One of the biggest problems in software development is task idle time when no one is working on it (for some studies, the industry average is 98% idle time!). The best of the best companies reduce downtime by up to 60%. When we focus the attention of employees on this problem, they begin to think about how important it is to bring the tasks to the end, and start asking themselves the right questions about workflows.
Participation in the game, of course, voluntary. For my part, I recommend the participation of the entire technical department and analysts, because it is really useful and improves work efficiency. The game of Tutu.ru also includes all managers and HRs. Next time we plan to invite the contact center staff.
Usually, it’s not me who initiated the next game session, but my executive colleagues who want new employees to undergo training. And this is another confirmation that the game “went” well and we need it.
If you plan to organize training with getKanban in a company, then you need to remember that game sets must be ordered in the USA. Translation of the game we did independently. Now you can find a translation option (for example, here ). By the way, on the website getKanban you can download the penultimate version of the game for free. Each new version solves problems that were found in the previous release. At will and need, the rules can be "tuned" and add examples from real life.
My name is Vadim Melnikov, and I am the technical director of tourist service Tutu.ru. In November 2014, at the Lean Kanban conference, I got into a section entirely devoted to the game getKanban. Considering my long-standing interest in Kanban as a whole, I, together with a colleague, decided to test the game. I wanted to "feel" Kanban in reality, physically feel how it differs from Scrum. In 2014, we had Scrum teams, and we were halfway between “to do agile” and “to be agile”. We carried out various activities: stand-ups, retrospectives, planning and demo. And the first two questions were asked - are they needed in this form? The game getKanban including helped to understand how to better convey the importance of stand-ups and retrospectives.
Four teams took part in the game, and it lasted for about five hours. Then it was my first immersion in Kanban and many moments became clearer: for example, how to read graphs and see the connection between the data on the graphs and the real work of the team, how to look for what can be improved and what prevents us. The first immersion experience was successful, and we decided to test the game within the company. However, this did not mean that the entire company immediately transferred to Kanban. In my experience, not all that we know is to be immediately introduced into the work. But the more knowledge we have, the more we can make analogies and take the best of the best. And since getKanban has methods that we lacked, why not take them to work?
')
Now directly about the game getKanban. The goal of the game is to manage a company that develops software and gets paid for a subscription. The task of the players is to increase the number of subscribers due to the release of various features.
Drawing game table, taken from the official website getkanban.com
The game field includes a playing field (Kanban-board with additional fields), task cards, game blocks. The tasks in the process of the game need to be solved very different: some of them are working tasks with an estimated complexity and profit, others are infrastructural support tasks with a fixed implementation period, others are completely unexpected and unpredictable (“fleeing hack”). Each task brings a certain number of subscribers in a certain formula. Game cubes replace employees (analysts, developers, testers). Each cube is one employee, and each face of the cube is the amount of work done by this employee per day.
The game is, in fact, a turn-based strategy in one-day increments. And every day there is a certain set of actions: first, at the stand-up we decide what tasks we will do during the day, then we throw the dice (the employees work). Every three days we carry out planning and demo and count the money. The entire game period is 16 days. We start from the 9th and end on the 24th.
Picture of the playing field, taken from the official website getkanban.com
At the end of each day, players open a card with an event in life or a question for discussion. For example, "speculate what will happen if the task is started sooner or later." What will change? Good or bad start earlier? Often, in real life, we don’t even think about it. If we complete one task earlier, another may suffer. Thus, an important thought is heard in the game: “Delivery on time”.
An important element of the game is graphics (Cumulative Flow Chart and Distribution Chart Diagram). These two graphics are in Kanban boards in Jira, but not everyone can read them correctly. The game helps to understand them. After each game, we open Jira and analyze real team boards. After the last game, the teams, whose boards were subjected to rapid analysis, had a long discussion about what was wrong and what could be improved. I really appreciate when after the game the guys apply their knowledge in practice, and the team does not have to work for Kanban at all. The game experience in getKanban is perfectly transferred to Scrum.
During the game, the main idea of ​​Kanban is broadcast - do not take work more than you can do. Participants of the game use visualization tools to track partially completed tasks and complete them. It is important that the features finally reach the user, because almost done bears zero benefit. Value appears only after the calculation of the problem.
In Tutu.ru, we have been playing getKanban 6 times already. Usually we play several teams of 4-5 people at each gaming table. Last time 8 teams played in parallel, which allowed to create an atmosphere of competition, evaluate the strategies of different people and significantly saved the time and energy of the organizers. In our experience, the ideal number of players in a team is 4-5 people. There are only 4 roles in the game, and when the number of players is less than four, there is no room for discussion, communication and pluralism of opinions. The game is aimed at changing the consciousness and perception, and this is impossible without full communication in the team. And if there are more than 5 participants in the team, then someone starts to “fall out” and does not actively participate in the work.
The process of preparing for the game is not laborious and requires costs only on the part of the organizers (booking and preparing the room, notifying the participants, arranging tables). The participants of the game themselves do not prepare for the game in any way.
At the game you need to lay at least 5 hours. The first hour of the game is dedicated to learning: we talk about Kanban and the process tools in general, and explain the rules of the game. An independent game in teams takes about 3 hours. We spend the last hour analyzing the results and answering interesting questions. The final discussion takes place in the tradition of pies and pizza.
In the course of analyzing the results, I ask leading questions and encourage the guys to think - I try not to voice the ready answers right away. Whenever possible, I draw analogies between game situations and real life. For example, the game has a character Pete, a developer from another team with his sprint who needs to do something for you, but does not do it very willingly and thereby reduces the effectiveness of the whole team. I give examples of real "pits" from real life. In general, there are quite a lot of amusing characters in the game, but I will not disclose details in order not to spoil the pleasure from the process.
The purpose of the game in Tutu.ru is the alignment of the information field. The principles on which Agile, Kanban, Scrum are built are universal: reducing task time in work, drawing tasks on the board, reducing the number of current tasks. You can tell all this in words. But, as our experience shows, people who played the game, see in practice how these or other decisions affect the final result. Thanks to the game, everyone starts to speak the same language: both those who have been in the company for a long time, and those who have just joined us. There is a noticeable difference between those who have already played, and who for some reason have not yet completed training: the latter have to further explain the terms.
Another goal of the game is to introduce the guys to each other, teach them to negotiate, hear and listen. When forming teams, we mix up the employees, gather in one team the guys who rarely overlap with each other in work. In the course of the game, I draw attention to potential leaders: the game shows excellent leadership skills and the ability to negotiate.
By organizing and conducting this game, I expect that as a result, less time will be spent on completing tasks, and “arriving” tasks will be more predictable. In the game, with the help of the Distribution chart diagram, you can construct the expected work time, and with the help of the proposed tools, you can reduce the average time of task execution.
Another positive result of the game: the efficiency of stand-ups increases and the motivation to use Kanban or Scrum boards increases. One of the biggest problems in software development is task idle time when no one is working on it (for some studies, the industry average is 98% idle time!). The best of the best companies reduce downtime by up to 60%. When we focus the attention of employees on this problem, they begin to think about how important it is to bring the tasks to the end, and start asking themselves the right questions about workflows.
Participation in the game, of course, voluntary. For my part, I recommend the participation of the entire technical department and analysts, because it is really useful and improves work efficiency. The game of Tutu.ru also includes all managers and HRs. Next time we plan to invite the contact center staff.
Usually, it’s not me who initiated the next game session, but my executive colleagues who want new employees to undergo training. And this is another confirmation that the game “went” well and we need it.
If you plan to organize training with getKanban in a company, then you need to remember that game sets must be ordered in the USA. Translation of the game we did independently. Now you can find a translation option (for example, here ). By the way, on the website getKanban you can download the penultimate version of the game for free. Each new version solves problems that were found in the previous release. At will and need, the rules can be "tuned" and add examples from real life.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/323792/
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