Product Owner Challenge is an agile game w/ Lego bricks. Its about challenging the product development to communicate clear objectives, requirements, and vision. Slidedeck contains playing instructions, examples and further info.

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Challenge your Product Development team!
Challenge your product owner (PO):
 To communicate with DevTeams as clear as possible,
 To describe the requirements and product vision to
DevTeams as precise as needed,
 To micro-manage the project or to allow the DevTeam
self-organisation,
 To handle locally distributed DevTeams appropriately,
 To manage the product development project waterfall-
or agile driven like.
“Product Owner Challenge” – Introduction
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“Product Owner Challenge” − An agile game with Lego bricks.
The goal is to illustrate a waterfall-driven product development culture
transitioning from Waterfall to Agile the agile mindset: communicate
face-to-face clear objectives, requirements, and product vision –
a real challenge for a product development department.

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“Product Owner Challenge” – Instructions
Game Objectives:
 Share product vision and instructions to the team as precise
as possible / needed to build the product right
 Communicate (requirements) as clear as possible
Material used:
 Lego 3in1 creator sets; each sets has bricks and
building instructions to build 3 different Lego
models
Duration:
 approx. 30min. or set your own time-boxing
Playing instructions:
• Product mgmt (PO) decides which product (model) of the
Lego kit the DevTem has to build
• PO has the building description
• DevTeam has Lego bricks only, and no building description
• PO is not allowed to show construction plan or photos to DevTeam;
PO is allowed to inspect the plan as often she needs to;

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Game Setting – ”Communicate your Vision
right!”
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 Product Mgmt (PO) and
DevTeam are separated in
different rooms/ spaces.
 PO has the building
instructions; PO is not
allowed to show the
instructions to DevTeam;
PO is allowed to inspect the
plan as often he needs to;
 DevTeam has Lego bricks
only;
Game objectives:
 PO: share product vision to
DevTeam clearly and
instruct DevTeam as
precise as possible to build
the product right.
 DevTeam: re-ensemble the
model as less as possible.
Dev Team
Product Owner /
Product Mgmt
Product Development (PO) has to „walk & talk“
building
description

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Debriefing examples
 „How easy/difficult was your task?” – „What
were your emotions?”
 „What made your task easy/difficult?”
 „Were you stressed?” – „Why?”
 „How was the communication with DevTeam?”
 „How often did you get back to view the
instructions again?”
 „How was it to be a micro-manager?” – „To
give the DevTeam trust and laissez-faire?”
 „When is micro-management/waterfall
appropriate and when agile management?”
 „What were the experiences you made with
locally distributed teams?”
 „How many deviations are between the final
product (model) and the product vision
(building instruction)?”
 ....
 „How easy/difficult was your task?” – „What
were your emotions?”
 „What made your task easy/difficult?”
 „Were you stressed?” – „Why?”
 „How was the communication with PO?”
 „How often did you re-ensemble bricks or
parts during the building process?”
 „How was it to be micro-managed?” – „To be
trusted and to get laissez-faire?”
 „When is micro-management/waterfall
appropriate and when agile management?”
 „What were the experiences you made with
locally distributed teams?”
 „How could the PO improve her
instructions?”
 „Did you understand your tasks/objectives
all times?” – „When you didn’t?”
 ....
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Product
Owner
Dev
Team

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PO does micro-management
time to Finish: 30 min
# re-steps to building
descriptions: 8
# deviations: 5 (minor):
 No front lights (a)
 No rear lights (b)
 No air grid on top of
driver„s cab (c)
(a)
(b)
(c)
Playing Result 1: Micro-Management

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Playing Result 2: Micro-Management vs. Agile
PO does micro-management
time to Finish: 30min
# re-steps to building descriptions: 7
# deviations: 0
Model is identical to vision!
Vision Model
1:1

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Playing Result 2: Micro-Management vs. Agile
PO gave coarse feature/ value descriptions only:
“I need a fire truck...”:
 ...with a platform to carry loads
 ...with a driver„s cab
 ...with front & rear lights , and signal light on cabin top.
time to Finish: 20min
# re-steps to building descriptions: 3
# deviations: majors
Major deviations to vision! – However, business value was met.
Vision Model

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There is a Uservoice forum platform to share your thoughts and
ideas about @POChallenge
Please express your votes on the existing ideas to support the
improvement and developement.
 Timebox the construction process to less than 30 min.
 Introduce penalties for:
 PO – for each time stepping back to inspect instructions
 DevTeam – for each time to re-ensemble bricks or parts
during the building process
 Introduce a metric and penalties for model deviations from
the initial vision.
 Use pre-defined user stories as equivalent to Lego building
instructions.
 Run a battle between waterfall/micro-management vs. agile/feature-driven
development
 Introduce a “logistic/material” bottleneck: a third-party governs all the bricks; PO
or DevTeam have to acquire bricks for the next construction steps by the
“supplier”.
 ...
Game Variations
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Credits, Licensing, and your further engagement
Credits & Licensing:
I facilitated open space sessions playing POChallenge with
several teams in parallel 2014 at Play4Agile (Germany)
and #play14 (Luxembourg). I thank all participants for
their help, comments, and suggestions to improve this game.
This game is free to be distributed under the following conditions:
(1) you are allowed to download and to share it with others as
long as (2) you credit me, (3,4) but you can‟t change the game in
any way or use it commercially.
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Your Engagement:
If you want to participate in further improvements and the development of the game...
...play the game and please give feedback at website: http://bit.ly/POChallenge
If you are interested in hire me for consultancy (Agile Coaching & Transition,
Software process improvement - CMMI, ISO15504), please drop me a note.

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Join the game: Play, Contribute & Share
Website: http://bit.ly/POChallenge
Twitter account: @POChallenge, hashtag #POChallenge
Facebook page: https:/bit.ly/POChallengeFB
UserVoice platform to share ideas: http://bit.ly/POChallengeUF
Flickr: http://bit.ly/POChallengeFlickr
Pinterest: http://bit.ly/POChallengePI
Mailing List: http://bit.ly/POChallengeML
Be informed and stay tuned!
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Contribute &
Share Your Ideas
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LEGO 3in1 Creator Series
The following pages shows some sets from the LEGO 3in1 Creator Series
suitable to play the “Product Owner Challenge Game”.
These models are easily to build – PO can remember the instruction steps, and
DevTeam can build them within 30min. 
Price for each set (in average): $6.- / €8.-
Unfortunately, Lego took the Creator 3in1 series hard cover boxes out of store and ship them now in
cardboard boxes only.
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LEGO Creator
5762 Mini Plane
LEGO Creator
6742 Mini Off-
roader
LEGO Creator
5865 Mini Dumper
LEGO Creator
31001 Mini
Skyflyer
LEGO Creator
5761 Mini Digger
LEGO Creator
6911 Mini Fire
Rescue
LEGO Creator
31000 Mini
Speeder

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LEGO Creator 5762 Mini Plane
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LEGO Creator 6742 Mini Off-roader
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LEGO Creator 5865 Mini Dumper
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LEGO Creator 5761 Mini Digger

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LEGO Creator 31001 Mini Skyflyer

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LEGO Creator 31000 Mini Speeder

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LEGO Creator 6911 Mini Fire Rescue

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LEGO Creator 6910 Mini Sports Car

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Competencies:
 Trained Innovation Games Facilitator
 Trained LEGO Serious Play Facilitator
 Management 3.0 certified Facilitator
 Certifed Scrum Master, Agile Coaching
 ISO 15504/Automotive SPiCE Assessor
 Requirements Engineering & Management
consultancy
 Quality Assurance & Management consultancy
 Project Management & Configuration Management
consultancy
Industrial Sectors:
Automotive, Finance, Logistics & Public Transport,
Defence & Aerospace, Aviation & Air Traffic,
Management
Plays-In-Business.com
ISO 15504 Assessor
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Plays-In-Business.com • Fritz-Kalle-Str. 4 • D-65187 Wiesbaden • Fon: +49-172-6915261 • Fax: + +49-3212-1312401
info@plays-in-business.com • www.plays-in-business.com

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Plays-In-Business.com
-22 - 24/03/2014
Plays-In-Business.com • Fritz-Kalle-Str. 4 • D-65187 Wiesbaden • Fon: +49-172-6915261 • Fax: + +49-3212-1312401
info@plays-in-business.com • www.plays-in-business.com