I picked up this game from my Scrum Master trainer, Henrik Kniberg, who in turn learned from George Dinwiddie at the Agile Coach Camp in Michigan a few years ago. Henrik has tweaked it a bit since then.
This game illustrates cycle-time and resource utilisation. It takes around 10 minutes to explain and 10 minutes to play.
You need groups of nine people. If you have people left over, they simply get to observe; and they won’t miss out on the learning. Set the groups up as illustrated below:
If you have eight people in a group, you can act as customer. If you have six or seven, you can have three pairs of coin turners and time keepers. If you have even less, turners will have to time themselves.
The aim is to deliver value to the customer, which happens when the customer receives coins from the last turner. Decide which coin turner will be the first. The time keepers and customer need time-pieces that can time seconds. Have each table collect 20 coins between themselves and place them on the table in front of the first coin turner.
First round: Have the first turner turn all the coins and pass them on to the second worker, who does the same, and so on till all four coin turners have turned the coins. The time keepers time their turner from the time they turn their first coin till their last. The customer keeps time from when the first turner starts until he/she (the customer) receives the coins. Record each turner’s time and the overall time.
Second round: have the first turner turn five coins and pass them on, etc. Each time keeper measures time from when their turner starts until they have turned all 20 coins. The customer again measures the time from the first turned coin until he/she receives the last batch of five coins. Record each turner’s time and the overall time.
Final round: have the first turner turn one coin at a time and pass it on, etc. Again, time keepers time their turner from the first until the last coin. Customer times from the first coined turned by the first turner until he/she receives the last coin from the last turner.
Here is a sample turn-out:
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1st round
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2nd round
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3d round
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Coin turner 1
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21 sec
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25 sec
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35 sec
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Coin turner 2
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22 sec
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27 sec
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35 sec
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Coin turner 3
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20 sec
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24 sec
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36 sec
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Coin turner 4
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22 sec
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25 sec
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36 sec
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Overall time
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87 sec
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47 sec
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39 sec
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Ask the group what they observed and what conclusions they can draw.
Essentially, by reducing batch-size (shorter iterations) we introduced more slack for the coin turners (analysts, developers, testers…), because they needed more time to complete, but overall we delivered a lot faster.
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