Exercise 1a - Ball Point game

🎯 Goal: The aim of this game is to invent a process by which balls are passed between players as quickly as possible in order to score points. (40 minutes)

The Rules:

• A point is scored when every player in a team touches a ball
• If a ball falls on the ground, it counts as a defect and cannot be used in the current round 
• You cannot pass a ball directly to your immediate neighbour
• Balls must have “air-time” (a ball may only be touched by one person at a time)

The Flow:

• Preparation (planning and retrospective): all team members invent or improve the process together (2 minutes)
• Estimation: the team estimates how many points they will score in the next round (a few seconds)
• Play (sprint): the team uses its process to score points (2 minutes)

The Timekeeper will create a table for each team as below.  The Timekeeper will also announce when to move between the different phases and record each team’s estimates, actuals and defects.

In your teams, you will perform FIVE sprints, and since each sprint will take less than 5 minutes, the whole game will take under 30 minutes.

Exercise 1b - Online Ball Point game

🎯 Goal: The aim of the game is to invent a process by which balls are passed between players of an online Ball Point game as quickly as possible in order to score points. (40 minutes)

Each team decides on a case-sensitive team name and everyone on the team uses this to open the online game.  E.g. if the team name is “WM6-MangoTeam”, the game URL will be https://remoteballpointgame.openforce.com/WM6-MangoTeam

Each team member needs to:

• Set their name
• Choose which controls to use: mouse & keyboard, or keyboard only
• Pick an avatar 
• Press F at any time to see the flip chart which explains the controls for mouse or keyboard, the warm-up rules, the Ball Point rules and the scoreboard for each sprint (use the arrow buttons to move between these)
• The Timekeeper can press T to start or reset the two-minute timer

Tip: you can change your controls, name or avatar at any time by refreshing the URL.

Warm-up game

Get familiar with the controls by picking up a ball (left/right mouse click or spacebar/shift key) and passing it to someone else in the same room.  

When everyone on the team is used to the controls, you are ready to move on to the actual game.

Ball Point game

The Rules:

• A point is scored when every player in a team touches a ball
• If a ball falls on the ground, it counts as a defect and cannot be used in the current round 

The Flow: 

• Preparation (retrospective and planning): all team members invent or improve the process together (2 minutes).  
• Estimation: the team estimates how many points they will score in the next round and the Timekeeper records this (a few seconds)
• Play (sprint): the team uses its process to score points (2 minutes)

The Timekeeper can press T to start/reset the two minute timer for the preparation and play phases.  The Timekeeper should also record estimates, actuals and defects for each round by pressing F and the left/right arrows to get to the scorecard.

In your teams, you will perform FIVE sprints, and since each sprint will take less than 5 minutes, the whole game will take under 30 minutes.

Ball Point Game Debrief

🎯 Goal: To reflect on your experience of working in teams with short sprints and rapid feedback and to consider how this relates to working in a real software development team. (20 minutes)

As a whole group, reflect on the following questions:

1. What did you experience during the Ball Point Game?
2. What do you notice about your scores?  Your defects?  Your estimate accuracy?
3. How much did you “fail”?
4. How did you go about deciding improvements from round to round?
5. Would you have scored more points if you had initially planned longer?
6. Would you have scored more points if you had made one plan and then played one long round? (Why not?)
7. Would you have scored more points if one individual had decided the process? (Why not?)
8. How is this related to your daily work?

Power Poses

🎯 Goal: Use Power Poses to give yourself a confidence boost (7 minutes)

Some psychologists have suggested that doing “Power Poses” for two minutes before a stressful event - like a presentation or a job interview - can help you boost your confidence and, therefore, help you perform better.  (Don’t do power poses during an interview! You’ll appear arrogant.)

This isn’t 100% scientifically proven, but many people to feel this exercise helps them, so let’s see if you can benefit from it.

Possible Power Poses are:

• “Victory” - Arms up in a V shape
• “Wonder Woman” - legs apart, hands on hips, head high
• “Obama” - sitting down with feet up on the table and hands behind head
• “Salutation” - feel firmly planted, chest out, arms stretched wide
• “Superman” - one arm ahead, fist clenched, ‘flying’ through the air

In contrast, low-power poses are those where you make yourself small, protecting yourself with your hands and arms. Avoid these.

Steps:

1. Choose someone to be the timekeeper (preferably a volunteer)
2. Spread out in the room, giving yourself plenty of space
3. Everyone chooses one of the Power Pose and holds it for 30 seconds. Be BIG. 
4. Repeat THREE times with a different pose each time

How do you feel compared with how you felt at the beginning of this exercise?

Public Speaking

🎯 Goal: Practice your public speaking in your groups (30 minutes)

Split into roughly equal groups of about 8 to 10 people. Take turns to be the speaker and give the three-minute talk you prepared to the other group members.  

Listeners, practice your active listening skills (give full attention to the speaker, reflect in your body language, nod, smile, and look puzzled as appropriate). At the end of each talk, each give the speaker ONE positive feedback about their talk.

Circles of Influence Discussion

🎯 Goal: Discuss the Circles of Influence you created as prep, focus on changes you can make to waste less energy/worry on things you cannot affect and more on things you can control or influence. (15 minutes)

Find a partner, and in your pairs, take turns to answer the following questions about your Circles of Influence (5 minutes each)

1. Looking at some of the items in your outer Circle of Concern, 

   • What could you do to move them into your circle of influence? 
   • What could you do about them that is within your control? 
   • Which ones can you do nothing about? Practice accepting that you can’t do anything about them and shift your focus and energy to the things you can influence and control. 

2. Looking at some of the items in your Circle of Influence,

   • Can you break any of these down into smaller things you can control?

As a whole group, spend 5 minutes sharing your learnings from this exercise. Were there any interesting ideas that you had to worry less about some concerns or changes you might make to gain greater control or influence?

The more you focus on and operate within your circles of influence and control, the bigger these circles will become. You are becoming more proactive and developing a growth mindset.

Create groups for JS3

🎯 Goal: Create groups for the next module’s group work (5 minutes)

Interacting with diverse groups fosters empathy, enhancing interpersonal skills for handling others effectively. So, focus on grouping with people you might not have interacted with so much.

At least two people must define the groups together. You must consider trainees’ availability. You must also consider how many hours of coursework or prep work must be done in groups.

1. Define the groups for the next module. Look for diversity, so people that haven’t worked together should give it a go, ensure you don’t have gendered groups, etc…  Don’t forget to check availability again.

   Tip: You can use this link to help you allocate people randomly

2. Open the existing spreadsheet for pairs/groups, create a new tab called “JS3 Groups”, and add the groups to the “JS3 Groups” tab

3. Share the spreadsheet on Slack, so it is visible to everyone

Create groups for the next module's group work.

🎯 Goal: Create groups for the next module’s group work. (10 minutes)

At least two people must define the groups together.  You must consider trainees’ availability.  You must also consider how many hours of coursework or prep work has to be done in groups.

1. Define the groups for the next module.  Look for diversity, so people that haven’t worked together should give it a go, ensure you don’t have gendered groups, etc…  Tip: You can use this link to help you allocate people randomly
2. Open the existing spreadsheet for pairs/groups and create a new tab called “JS3 Groups”, and add the groups to the “JS3 Groups” tab
3. Share the spreadsheet on Slack so it is visible to everyone