Last year I created a short session – Learning Scrum Through Games – to help people explore the basics of Scrum in a one hour format. This year I rewrote it and took it to both Agile Tour Toronto and Ottawa.

We learned a number of interesting things from both sessions:

• Even with a poor quality Product Backlog (the Backlog I gave attendees has many issues) the team was still able to create a pretty good product.
• I don’t give the best instructions to start the exercise and yet attendees manage to create some great comics. When a real Scrum team start it’s chaotic at first. I would prefer attendees get a sense of this during the exercise so I give deliberately vague instructions. Read More…

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In my Certified ScrumMaster Training I ask students not use their laptops and CrackBerry’s. Why?

Some people want to take notes using their laptops. Unfortunately my experience shows that laptops do more harm than good. They put up a barrier between people at a table and reduce collaboration. They send a signal that this person isn’t open. They even reduce interaction with the trainer. Finally with tools like outlook even if you don’t have web access they’re often a source of distraction. For these reasons I ask that you not use a laptop.

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