Postcards

How to play

Setup

Ask the group to self organise into even teams (5-10 people).
Ask for one volunteer per team, someone creative with a good imagination.
Gather the volunteers, tell the teams to pick table, sit down, make themselves comfortable and introduce each other.

Meanwhile with the volunteers, brief them:

• In this game they are customers.
• They lack the ability to draw, but their teams are able to provide a drawing service.
• You goal is to work with your team to produce a picture on the A2 flip chart paper.
• Think of your favourite place in the world.
• I want you to collaborate with your team to produce a picture of this place.
• The picture should be completed in 10 mins.
• Be passionate, be emotive but also be inclusive. Listen to their ideas and try to incorporate them. If they make a mistake, go with it.

Send the volunteers back to the teams.

Concept

This game has three rounds.

• In round 1, the teams will create a picture with complete collaboration.
• In round 2, the teams will attempt to use words to describe how to re-draw that picture.
• In round 3, the teams will attempt to use each other's words to draw pictures.

The teams will experience a wide variety of emotions as this game plays out.
The teams will discover that the written language is very prohibitive when attempting to give instructions.
The teams will discover that using written instructions to create something will involve large amounts of assumptions and interpretations, causing them to ultimately to fail.

Rules

In round 1, the customer cannot touch the pens.
Teams may not see what other teams are producing.
No photographing! :)

Round 1

Announce:

• In this game, you all are artists.
• Your customers cannot draw.
• Your customers have a picture they’d like you help to produce.
• You have ten minutes to collaborate with your customer and make their picture.
• Any questions?
• Go!

Keep good time keeping, calling out remaining time every min or two
Look out for teams that haven’t put pen to paper after 3 or 4 mins, remind them that the goal is to have a complete picture by 10
Look out for people who are not drawing, remind them there’s more than one pen

Round 1 - Reflection (example questions)

Artists: How did that feel?
Customers: How did you find that experience?
Customers - do you like your pictures?
How accurate are the results?

Round 2

Announce:

• Customers: Thank you for playing customers - For this round and the next, please just be team members.
• We have a problem. The printing company we are going to use are in Edinburgh, and only have access to the most basic of email services. Unfortunately we can’t send images.
• You’ve all received or written requirements before right?
• In your teams, use the lined paper and construct an email that describes how to recreate your picture.
• You have 10 minutes.
• Questions?
• Go!

Keep good time keeping, calling out remaining time every min or two.
Keep an eye out for teams who aren’t writing stuff yet. Remind them of the timebox.
Keep an eye out for teams who are making one person write. Suggest they could could share the load.

Round 2 - Reflection (example questions)

How did that feel? Why was it hard?
Why wasn’t it much fun?
How accurate do you feel your emails are?

Round 3

Announce:

• Ok, just for fun, lets see how accurate they were =D
• Turnover (hide) your A2 pictures, and grab a fresh sheet.
• Swap emails with another table.
• Ok, your challenge is to recreate that teams pictures from the email in front of you.
• You have 10 mins.
• Questions?
• Go!

Keep good time keeping, calling out remaining time every min or two.
Look out for teams that haven’t put pen to paper after 3 or 4 mins, remind them that the goal is to have a complete picture by 10.
Look out for people who are not drawing, remind them there’s more than one pen.

Round 3 - Reflection (example questions)

How did that feel?
Why was it hard?
Why wasn’t it much fun?
What was missing?
How accurate do you feel your picture are?

Wrap up

Compare the before and after pictures

• Make it a laugh
• Applaud everyone's efforts

Reflection (example questions)

• Ask people to point out the differences
• Ask which of the experiences they preferred today?
• Ask why they are different?
• Ask who here uses email regularly?
• Ask who here had ever received instruction in an email?
• Ask who here has ever given instruction via email?

Takeaways

• It’s impossible to accurately convey requirements, instruction, need via the written word.
• Filling in the gaps
  The less words you use the more assumptions will happen
  The more words you use, the more interpretations will happen
• Agile has the principle: The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a team is face-to-face conversation.