Moving cards

It is interesting to see how much time you can save by passing smaller amounts of work to the next team in the chain. A game that helps with this is “moving cards.” This game is derived from the scrum penny game and goes as follows:

Materials Needed:

• One facilitator (you) and nine participants who take on a specific role: one customer, four workers (whom you can name after the various disciplines needed to deliver value, such as designers, developers, testers, implementers), and four managers (the bosses of the workers).

• Five stopwatches (phones), twenty playing cards, and a flip chart to note the results.

Setup:

• The workers are arranged around a table. All managers stand behind their workers with a stopwatch. The customer stands next to the workers at the table with a stopwatch and a piece of paper with a pen.

• The game is played in three rounds.

First Round:

• The first worker gets the stack of twenty cards. We call this a batch of twenty cards. The worker flips all the cards one by one and then passes them as a stack to the next worker. That worker does the same, as does the third worker, and finally, the fourth worker. When the fourth worker is done flipping, they pass the stack of cards to the customer.

• The managers each measure their worker’s performance by timing how long they take to complete the task. The time starts when a worker receives the stack of cards and stops when they pass the cards to the next worker (or the customer).

• The customer measures the total lead time from wish to delivery. The customer writes down when they receive the first value (in the form of the first card) and when they receive the last value (in the form of the last card). In the first round, this is the same time because all twenty cards are delivered in one stack. The time starts when the first worker gets the stack of cards and ends when the customer receives the stack.

• The facilitator notes the scores on the flip chart at the end of each round: both the times per individual worker and the total lead time measured by the customer.

Second Round:

• Play with a batch of five cards. This means the stack of cards is split into four stacks of five cards. The workers again flip the cards but may now pass them in stacks of five. Once a worker gets a stack of five, they can start flipping. Again, the individual times are measured by the managers. A worker is only done when all twenty cards are passed.

• The customer writes down when they receive the first value (first five cards) and when they receive the last value (last five cards).

Third Round:

• Play with a batch of one card. The cards can now be flipped one by one and passed directly to the next worker. Again, the managers and customer measure the times.

Evaluation: What do you notice?

• From the perspective of the worker and the manager, you see the processing time of the individual worker increase as the batch size decreases. The workers become a bit slower.

• From the perspective of the customer, you see an impressive improvement in rounds two and three. The customer receives their first value much faster. So, the individuals go slower, but the customer gets value sooner. What do we find more important?