Agile – Page 5 – Moss and Lichens

Here are two marshmallow towers built by two different teams.

Team 1 managed to create an engineering marvel. I loved the base which looked like a tent with 5 base sticks. It also extended from there with an inverted triangle followed by a regular triangle. The entire structure was held in place using a red string you see on the side. The marshmallow rests proudly on the top.

Team 2 went straight for the goal “tallest freestanding structure”. The base does not look stable but it does the job. The multiple spaghetti together seem to provide strength to the structure. The second level bends likes the leaning tower of pisa. But it was the “tallest freestanding structure”

Both teams had a short Retrospective which was spent in grabbing more beers and talking about other things than ideating to create the next tallest freestanding structure. This is very similar to Retrospectives wherein we discuss things which are not related to the Sprint Goals. Focus on Sprint Goals during Retrospectives is very important.

Team 1 kept their initial concept and switched from tape to string which did not help because in the second iteration the structure collapsed.

The structure collapses, because very often we forget the fact that the icing on the cake can break the cake. The trick is to be able to test it beforehand. Our QA environments should provide this opportunity in a safe manner to test the Marshmallow on the tip of the tower.

Team 2 used the same concept in two iterations and managed to have the tallest freestanding structure.

Sometimes a winning method may just be repeated.

How often do we have a Sprint Goal that is simple but we tend to complicate it with our existing knowledge and need to overengineer.
Laser focus on the Sprint Goal would help a team understand that delivery on that is what matters

Have you played the Marshmallow Tower game yet?

Look how the Marshmallow got grilled later 🙂

Reference: Agile Games to Boost Team Building and Creativity | MiroBlog

Will your curtains hold?

Photo by Anaïs MURITH on Unsplash

Have you ever setup curtains yourself?

I did many years back.

I bought a very cool Bosch drilling machine with the hammer setting.

I bought screws and wall plugs.

I drilled a hole, put in the wall plug, screwed in the holders and mounted the curtains.

The first curtain came crashing down when my cat swung on it chasing mice.

The second curtain came crashing down when my young daughter gave it a swing.

I brought down the other curtains keeping in mind the safety of the people in the house.

I spoke to a friend and he told me three things:

The material you are drilling into
The kind of the wall plug you use
The length of the screw in relation to the height and weight of the curtain

When I understood that I was drilling into brick and the plaster was 1.5cm thick, I drilled a deeper hole, got a wall plug made for brick and screwed the curtains in right.

Now I can sleep peacefully below my curtains.

How about our teams?

What process are we trying to drill into them?
What experience and knowledge do the the team members that we are drilling have already and want to build?
What is the glue that keeps the team and the process together?
How deep in the process we drill?
Can the process hold up the size and scale of the team(s)?

Do you have answers to these questions?

When we have the answers we will sleep peacefully knowing well that our teams are ready to handle the challenges thrown at them.