Digital Design and Innovation

Department of Management Information Systems, Temple University

Digital Design and Innovation

MIS 3504.003 ■ Spring 2024 ■ Steven E. Sclarow, AIA

ICA #7

The Paper Plane Game (Scrum Simulation)

A paper airplane and some crumbled paper
A paper airplane and some crumbled paper

Set Up

Teams should be formed out of 4–7 people. Each team receives 50 blank A4 pieces of paper. The facilitator prepares a whiteboard to write & keep track of scores. The venue, where the game is played, should be big enough for the paper airplanes to fly (or have a corridor available). This is intended as a 50-minute activity with 45-minutes of scrum simulation and 5-minutes of class reflection & discussion.

Goals

The goal of the game is to create as many successful paper airplanes as possible within 3 iterations. What constitutes a “successful” is an airplane that flies at least 30 meters and has its front folded/blunt (for security reasons).

Rules Overview

Each iteration consists of a 3-minute planning phase, 3-minute execution phase and 3-minute retrospective (where improvements in the process are discussed).

3-minute planning phase

  1. Teams research, collaborate and discuss.
  1. Teams must document their approach.

3-minute execution phase

  1. Each person in a team can do only one-fold at a time (all other team members must make a fold, before a person that started can do his/her next fold).
  1. Testing of the airplanes can be done only during the execution phase.
  1. Planes must fly, you can’t mash them into paper balls and throw them.

Additionally, at the end of each planning phase, the facilitator asks the teams for their estimations on the number of planes delivered in that round. Planes that were not completed or tested should be subtracted from the total of successful planes count.

3-minute retrospective phase

  1. Document what you learned.

Core Takeaways

  • This game is designed to simulate scrum; it focuses less on showcasing what agile actually is, and more on how to improve iterative processes that are already in place.
  • Great for showcasing how the estimations accuracy improve with the teams getting a better feeling of their own capacities/velocity.
  • Recommended for teams who already work in iterative processes, to stir the discussion about the things they could improve in their existing setup.
  • A simple plane assembling activity that is a the core of the game can mirror real life problems that your team is encountering in their product development processes like; lack of communication, delaying of QA until last moment and overestimating the scope of the delivery.

Source: https://medium.com/tajawal/5-great-activities-to-get-your-team-excited-about-agile-b0c88f4a901a