(Designed to
complement SAFe® For Teams Training)
Overview
SAFe® For Teams (S4T) training is a critical component to
launching an Agile Release Train (ART) successfully. The training event will provide a level set
on SAFe® ScumXP, provide insight into how to plan and execute a Program
Increment (PI) and allow the teams to start or solidify their formation as a
successful Agile Team. However, the
impact of the 2 day education can be enhanced by providing a hands on
simulation for teams to practice their new learning and skills prior to the
upcoming PI Planning event. The Scaled City PI Simulation is an adaptation of the tried and true Scrum
Simulation using LEGOS® that has helped so many teams learn the basics of Scrum
in a fun and engaging environment.
The PI Sim PowerPoint provides a step by step guide for
SPC’s to use to deliver this exercise.
The Sim is intended to be incorporated into the S4T training, preferably
in the morning of the second day, but can be utilized outside of the training event. This
allows team members to lock in the learnings from the previous day and an
opportunity to exercise their new Lean Agile muscles. The PPT is self-explanatory for the delivery steps,
however there are many nuances to apply to this exercise to enhance the learning.
Setup
You will need around 200 various sized LEGO® pieces per
team. Try to get a variety of types and
usages, including a number of wheels and special shapes. LEGO's are not cheap, but hitting a few
garage sales or eBay items will help reduce the cost. You will also need large 2’ x 3’ poster
sheets (2 for the city layout and 1-2 per team for planning), markers or
sharpies, and a printed copy of the Features from the PPT. Each team should have a table and space large
enough for 4-6 people to move around easily, as well as one large poster sheet
to do their planning.
Prior to the start of the exercise you will need to setup a
‘deployment’ table in the middle of the room, and tape two large flipchart sheets
long edge to long edge on the table for the city layout. I usually draw a river along one edge and
leave the rest as a blank canvas for the teams to innovate on. If you have a co-trainer, ask them to play the
role of Mayor of Scaled City.
Simulation
This exercise is about learning, but it’s also about
generating energy and confidence in the PI Planning and Execution process. Hopefully, you are presenting the S4T
training right before the PI Planning event (think M-T for S4T and W-T for PI
Planning) in which case any energy you can generate in this simulation will
spill over into the planning event.
Start this sim off with as much energy and enthusiasm as you can, and
keep it fun!
I usually jump right into the deck and explain the sim using
the information in the slides.
Team/Feature Selection
To speed things up, each team will have pre-assigned
features based on their team name. Make
sure you explain that this is not normal, but only done for the simulation, as
most PI Planning events will utilize what I call team agnostic features. I like to have the teams select their team
name (and their features) after the Product Vision and Roadmap to create a
sense of self-organizing around the problems to be solved. For experienced Product Owners and Scrum
Masters I like to have them take a different role to see how the ‘other’ side
lives, but inexperienced or new PO’s and SM’s should probably take that role in
the Sim.
Planning
Don’t worry that the team members are following every ‘rule’
of PI Planning, but focus on the important aspects, such as Team Objectives
(gleaned from their features and the vision of the city), dependencies to other
teams (e.g. DOT needs to work with Works to make sure the bridge meets the
needs), and risks to their plans (a common one is that they will not have
enough Legos and will need to borrow).
During planning ask each team questions that will lead them to discover
the objectives, dependencies and risks critical to the commitment. Help them with the time box by repeating
“Breadth versus Depth” and focusing on a broad plan with gaps that they can go
back to fill in as time permits.
Plan Review
This is a great time to cement in the need for discovering
and planning around dependencies on other teams. As each team reviews their plan ask questions
that will lead to discovery of missed dependencies. Have each team focus on their objectives in
the review, rather than reading off each story.
Call out risks they may have missed in their plans, stressing that risks
are opportunities for the plan to fail.
Once each team has committed you can do a confidence vote, but for the
sim you don’t need to spend much time on getting every team member to a 4 or 5.
PI Execution
Iteration 1
In the first iteration you want to generate a quick win for
the teams to generate confidence, so I usually coach them a fair amount towards
success. However, I do leave particular
things out, such as early integration and deployment. A very typical scenario is that the teams
will build for the first 14 minutes and then scramble at the last minute to
integrate into the city, resulting in things like a 1 inch high fire department
and a 4 inch high fire truck. As Product
Manager, I stress the importance of integration by looking for issues (real or
made up) to show the impact of lack of early deployment and integration,
resulting in delayed learning. The
system demo is always full of teaching opportunities!
Iteration 2
During Iteration Planning I stress the inclusion of learning
from the first iteration, encouraging them to alter their iteration plan from
the PI Planning as needed to adapt.
Depending on the progress of the teams I will add a wrinkle by
disappearing for most of the iteration timebox, thereby making the Product
Manager not available. When I reappear
(usually with just a minute or two left in the iteration) there are usually
tons of questions and adjustments needed.
This is done to illustrate the need for the involvement of the Product
Manager throughout the iteration, and the usefulness of live feedback.
Iteration 3
By the middle of iteration 3 the teams are usually winding
down on the committed features and have time to innovate. At this point I start to introduce new ideas
based on the knowledge they provided during the other two iterations, such as
adding a ‘homeless problem’ from all the people moving in to our great city
faster than expected, or a water treatment problem (one team solved the lack of
fresh water by grabbing the water pitcher off the snack cart and placing it in
the town as a water tower, that’s innovation!)
Summary
After the PI system demo (end of iteration 3) I gather the
teams around the city and pick out other learning opportunities. Look for things like the amount of
collaboration, the ability to work cross team, the way the teams solved
problems that they didn’t believe they had the skillset to tackle, etc. I wrap it up by illustrating how similar this
is to executing in a PI, and encourage the teams to use the sim to help them
think differently during the upcoming PI Planning event. Heading back in to the rest of the S4T
training I can now use a lot of examples from the sim in the subsequent content
with something they can connect with.
Please feel free to use this toolkit as is without any
license or the like, however, please do not modify or remove the Radius ET branding without previous permission from Radius ET.
Note: SAFe®, SAFe For Teams®, and the Scaled Agile Framework® are all copyrights of Scaled Agile Inc.
