Product owner challenge is an agile game with Lego bricks. It supports organisations in transitioning from waterfall to agile. The game illustrates the agile mindset to a waterfall-driven product development culture: stop micro-management and communicate face-to-face clear objectives, requirements and product vision.

1. Michael Tarnowski
Product Owner Challenge Game
Who Delivers Value First?

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I’m Your Session Host Today
Michael Tarnowski
www.plays-in-business.com
URL: http://bit.ly/ProductOwnerChallenge
Downloads:
•http://de.slideshare.net/emte69/
SW Engineer & Coder (C++, Linux)
Project manager (Air Traffic Management
IT consultancy:
• Scrum Master, Agile Coach
• Traditional world: QA, PM, ReqEng, Testing,
SW process improvement (ISO 15504, CMMI)
Evangelist in Serious Play @ Work:
• #play14, Play@Work
• Cert. LEGO Serious Play Facilitator
• Cert. Innovation Games Facilitator
• Agile Games Fan

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https://pixabay.com/de/wasserfall-ozean-meer-nat%C3%BCrliche-1005895/ https://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf
Winston Walker Royce: MANAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE SOFTWARE SYSTEMS. Proceedings,
IEEE WESCON, August 1970, pages 1-9.

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-4 - 11.05.2017Waterfall
https://pixabay.com/de/wasserfall-ozean-meer-nat%C3%BCrliche-1005895/ https://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf
Winston Walker Royce: MANAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE SOFTWARE SYSTEMS. Proceedings,
IEEE WESCON, August 1970, pages 1-9.

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-5 - 11.05.2017Waterfall & Agile
https://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
„Inspect & Adapt“ cycles in both
Scrum defines
„incremental” = 1 sprint

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The Scenario
Product Owner Challenge
The Customer’s Project

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It’s Not The Question “Either, Or…”Pascal, https://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/4948494811/

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Challenge Your Product Development !https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/7291403658/in/dateposted/
The Contest – Waterfall vs. Agile

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The Setup
For Each Table
 Teams à 4 persons: 1 Product Manager/PO, 2 developers, 1 time-keeper
 Each team select a Product Owner / Product Manager
 Product Owner / Product Manager opens white envelope – and read:
Team Waterfall Team Agile
 Product Owner / Product Manager picks a LEGO set and decides which
product will be built
Product Owner Challenge

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Material
 Lego sets (3x1 Creator Series)
 User Story cards
 Process cards
Product Owner Challenge

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Rules
 Only Product Owner / Product Manager has the building instructions
 Product Owner / Product Manager is not allowed to show the instructions
to DevTeam, nor to make pictures or scribbles
 Product Owner / Product Manager is allowed to return to the plan as
often she needs to inspect
 DevTeam has Lego bricks only, and no building description
URL: http://bit.ly/ProductOwnerChallenge

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Game Objectives
 Product Owner / Product Manager:
share product vision with your
DevTeam clearly and instruct team
as precise as possible to build the
product right
Process Objectives
 Team Agile:
 estimate how many sprints;
 for each sprint do a planning
and a retrospective after to
improve
 Team Waterfall:
 PO/PM: try to slice your
deliverables in stand-alone
usable chunks
 DevTeam: re-ensemble the
model as less as possible

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All images used are – if not stated otherwise – taken from flickr.com under Common Creative License.
Julien GONG Min, https://www.flickr.com/photos/bfishadow/3634884928/