SE-2800 Software Engineering Process
Activity: The Scrum Ball Game

The objective of this lab is to become familiar with some fundamental process elements, such as estimation and progress tracking.

Preparation

Your instructor will select a team comprised of approximately 6 persons. The team will be playing the "Scrum Ball Game". The goal of this game is to pass as many balls as possible through every member of the team in 2 minutes. They'll do this in several iterations, or Sprints, each time recording estimates, defects, any changes made to the approach, and other notes regarding team performance.

Rules

• Balls must be passed from the inbox to the outbox.
• Each person on the team must take posession of each ball as it is passed around.
• You must recycle the balls into the original inbox if the outbox gets full.
• If a ball is dropped, the team must halt activity for five seconds and record this as a "defect".

Execution

Use the table found in SE2800-ScrumBallGame.docx to record the following information for each Sprint:

• Before you start a Sprint, estimate how many balls you think will be passed.
• Within a Sprint, keep track of the number of "defects" made in an iteration (e.g. the number of balls dropped).
• Within a Sprint, make projections every 30s (based on actual "work" to-date) for the number of balls you think will be passed.
• At the end of each Sprint, record the actual number of balls passed.
• At the end of a Sprint, discuss your results, consider improvements that can be made for the next round, and record notes on the discussion in the document.

Analysis

At the completion of the exercise, you'll analyze and interpret the results as a class.

Credit: The idea for this game was provided by Mr. Brad Becker of Brady Corporation, Milwaukee, WI, which uses a Scrum process for software development. The game was originally conceived by Scrum evangelist Boris Gloger and a form of it is discussed by Declan Whelan here.