Some news about Brain date !
Customer integration with agile framework
While Headmind Partners continuously promotes its consultants to get more certificated and practical experience with Agile, we also think about initiatives. For example, how to integrate directly our customers in the learning process for this framework.
The “Brain date”
The « Brain date » is the name of an ongoing internal project in the scope of the Lab New Way of Working (NWoW). Initially, the objective was to develop a matrix to assess the Agile maturity of our customers. Then, we realized that a lot of them could get confused when it comes to the first steps of Agile implementation and improvement phases with their teams.
It appears that these customers are interested in practical approaches that would give them a sample of the real benefits they could get and the traps they should avoid in their journey on the Agile road. Therefore, the « Brain date » project consists in organizing a session of on-site events where customers from different environments will participate to a special board game as a simulation of Agile Sprints and Ceremonies (Daily Standup, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review …).
Gamification of the internal project Brain date
In order to make it more interactive, we decided to immerse the “Brain date” into the concept of gamification:
- Based on a pre-defined context (i.e. data breach incident in an insurance company), the participants will receive specific roles within a fictive Agile team.
- They will have to build a solution by handling correctly “User Stories” and “Impediments” cards.
- These cards will make them gain or lose Story Points depending on their behavior (in alignment with the Agile methodology) through the different Iterations of the board game.
- The Lab members will monitor the participants’ behavior, acting as game masters as well as external stakeholders.
- In the end, we will still provide an assessment (with the matrix) of the participants’ Agile maturity based on their final results.
- In the future, we hope to adapt the “Brain date” in its numeric version.
We want this internal project “Brain date” to be inclusive as well as a networking event for our customers. By interacting with each other, this is a unique opportunity for the participants to share on their specific experiences. It allows them tor ealize that the Agile framework needs to be adapted to their own environment. Of course, we also want to use this event as a communication channel and support our customers in this challenge with Headmind Partners’ expertise in Agile.
