Hello everyone, here is what I was waiting for some time, one retro with LEGO® in first hand. If you want my resume in one phrase, here is: “It was a FANTASTIC retrospective”.
First of all I was looking something funny to do with the team. Something where we could learn the great work we are able to do if we work together. Something where, as scrum master, allow me to show the team the importance of be creative, spontaneous, and simple. After some reading, I started to think that LEGO® games could help with that. I started to search for games and I realized that there is not a lot of documented LEGO® games.
At the end, I really like one of the games from tastycupcakes with a very small adaptation, and the result was more of what I was expected. This post is to share my retrospective experience with you.
Here is the game rules:
- Team needs to come up whit one personage, it could be a very known personage, it could be a carton, or it could be a film personage.
- Team needs to come up with an object and on color.
- Team will rum 3 sprints, 12min each one (2 min plan + 7 min build + 3 min review)
- For one team of 3 people, in this retrospective, I decided to ask for 4 scenes, they needed to be sure that the history had one start, one end, and the history needed to be based in the story goal
Retrospective ‘s DoD:
- The team need to add one action at least in each scene
- One picture per scene
The team’s personage was in this case “Homer Simpson”, the object was an “table”, and the color was “blue”. The first sprint run and people start to plan, create and present. After the pictures, the PO (I play that role) started to listen the history, very fun and creative.
- Sprint #1 goal: “Homer Simpson and the blue table”.
For the second sprint, I added the first surprise, one place. Since “Homer Simpson” was the personage, I selected “Moe’s Tavern” and the second sprint was launched.
- Sprint #2 goal: add “Moe’s tavern” story to one scene. Adapt the history keeping in mind the goal of the first sprint (“Homer Simpson and the blue table”).
Some re-factoring, discussion and creativity and the second sprint was done, picture and history review were at the place.
Last sprint and one surprise more, I added one personage more to the history, it was “Ned Flanders”.
- Sprint #3 goal: Add the new personage to each scene and review the full and final history.
After 12 min the team took the last picture and they present the final work to the PO and end of the game. A lot of fun, creativity, discussion and LEGO®. I really enjoyed the full game, but the best part of the game has been our 15/20 min of talk about what the team learn from this activity. Here the full list we discussed in the order the team came up with each one:
- Team work
- Adaptation
- Plan
- Communication
- Knowledge of the product
- Motivation
- Imagination
- Originality
- Fun
- Creativity
I don’t need to say the wonderful kind of talk we got in the last 20 min. It was fantastic, I never think about this kind of results, but I really like it. looking forward to repeat it sooner or later.
More pictures and video (in French) are available here
Please feel free to share your experience or send me any comment or feedback.
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Thank you,
Omar Bermudez.
4 Responses to Retrospective and Creativity with LEGO Serious Play
Hello, Omar
thanks for this nice post.
I really like the idea. This is a good team building activity.
The only negative side (or it’s better to call it incompleteness) is that by the end of the game the team did not come with improvement actions.
What actions did you put into the backlog after such a retrospective? You just stopped at the half way.
What you described was a “Gather Data” and “Generate Insights” (Team Work, Adaptation… etc) sections after which you should have proceeded to “Decide What To Do” section and work out specific actions for improvements. What do you think about it?
Hi Illya,
Thank you for you comment. About what you noticed, yes you are right, no AI or backlog items from this activities. It was not my intention when I prepared this activity. Principally because the team is relativity young and I was not sure how the team will react to this activity.
Due to that, I preferred to focus the activity in the value of the creativity inside of the team and keep this activity simple. It was my original idea. However, the result was better, the team came up with a lot of “Insights” and I was very happy. We ended talking about how the team could add value to the backlog and the product. How important is the team creativity in the development of the product and more. Again, no new items to the backlog (yet), but it was very positive retrospective and now, I am ready to prepare other activities to get those action items (AI) and/or items in the backlog.
thanks,
Omar
Hi I like your post.
I would like to know How di you Plan to Use the LEGO for the Actions and insertion of Action Items.
Cheers
Fabio
Hi Fabio,
Thanks for your comment.
I planned this game to get “Insights” and the team realize that they can be creative and add value to the backlog. I didn’t push at all for any Action Item(AI). However, we could get AIs if we stopped at any of the “Insights” and formulate some question to get info of what we are missing relate to this and what we can do to improve it.
If you think that the team is missing “communication”, you can focus the discussion on that as soon as you listen it. You could stop at one or two and work in the AIs for your team.
Again, this one, I didn’t run it for get AIs, but the option is up to you depending what you need/want to work with the team.
I hope this help you,
Omar