Agile game – Pass the Cup!

Timing: 10 mins

Ingredients:

  • A fair amount of cups ( x2 > no of team members)
  • A bag  (holding cups)
  • A referree counting cups and checking time

Directions:

Split into two teams "planners" and "doers". Introduce both teams into winning rules: Any team passning the highest number of cups around in 60s will win. Any cup dropped is considered faulty and has to start over from the beginning. 

Limitation: A cup cannot be passed on to the person standing next to you but cup must pass all persons in the team before counting as a score.

Planners: now has 5 min for planning their way of action (but are not allowed to practice!)

Doers: can practice for 5 minutes

Bring teams out and run the game. 

Note: game can also be run in a single team setup with two rounds. Give team 1 minute to plan before each round and note the number of cups passed in each round.

Learning Points:

  • By doing, you uncover things you could not forsee
  • By doing, team has already passed a number of cups! (aka made a prototype 🙂
  • How did productivity go up per iteration?
  • Who stepped up and offered solutions? Was problem solved through member interaction or command/control?

2 responses on “Agile game – Pass the Cup!

  1. I for some reason find you descriptions a little to short to really grasp, boot what to do and why (what it will show).

    Do each team stand in a separate circle where one person is the start/finish, he starts passing a cup and when it returns he puts it in the bag and then continues with the next?

  2. Yes two teams, each stands in a circle.

    On person is the start/finish. If it is hard to do both you can divide the job into two persons. After all, the finish person or the observer must count the cups successfully reaching finish.

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