Luiz Claudio Parzianello and Rafael Prikladnicki gave a talk at Agile 2009 titled “Logical Levels and Statistical Games: A Powerful Strategy for Agile Adoption”. Slides are available here.
On the surface this may seem like a rehash of standard trainers games, but that is missing the point.
One important aspect is that all the games are statistical and can be numerically measured so that it appeals to the left-brain scientific types that dominate the software industry. The three games are outlined below.
The bottom left of the diagram show the NLP logical levels. By asking specific questions related to identity and values, it is possible to get a shift in perspective that will provide an openness to learning about Agile.
After playing game #1 comparing the effect of large batches versus small, there are some hard hitting questions:
- Who has decided to keep your team too slow? (by using large batches)
- Why has your team agreed with that?
- What stops your team from changing this situation?
- Do delivery and time really matter to your managers?
These questions use the NLP meta model to help people uncover information that has been buried beneath their conscious awareness. This can help them get unstuck from their waterfall world and be open to considering new ideas. How cool is that?
The games plus the questions form a useful adoption tool. Check out the presentation and try out the questions – there are some real zingers there. Once caveat – these are appropriate for a Brazilian context and may need some tuning for other locales.
