NoEstimates Game
Or, the Sources of Variation Game
Big Picture
• Goal: Deliver the most value!
• Each card delivered is a point
• Play in “day” rounds
• Teams play independently but have
interdependency with other teams
Setup
1. Divide into teams of 3-7 people –
they do not all have to be same size
2. Decide as a whole group:
• Each player’s role: A, B, C or D. (Wear a “role” tag.)
• Size/composition of teams (you can use matrixed
workers)
3. Work notes:
• Only 66% of the cards have A work
• D work is approximately 75% of B or C
Workflow
• Capacity: 4 points per team member/day
• Team members use full effort points in their primary role,
half in any other
• Cards progress by finishing work in A-B-C-D sequence,
though C-D can be done concurrently.
A
B
Team Dependency
• Some cards have a team dependency.
• When you draw a card that has one, also draw a team
card to see which team it is dependent upon.
• To complete the card, someone from that team must
spend time helping you.
• Time spent helping another team counts against your
capacity.
Team
Dependency
A ❍❍❍❍
B ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
C ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
D ❍❍❍
Team____________ ❍❍❍❍
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Delivery Time
Blue
Matrixed Workers
• For any worker who supports multiple teams, teams
need to sort out who gets the effort.
• If a person works for multiple teams in one day, he or
she deducts 1 capacity point for each additional team.
• E.g., role A works on Blue team and Red team in one day
(regular capacity of 4 is now 3):
A ❍❍❍❍
B ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
C ❍❍❍
D ❍❍❍
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Blue Team
A ❍❍❍❍
B ❍❍❍❍❍❍
C ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
D ❍❍
Delivery Time
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Red Team
Delivery Time
Blockers
1. For each card in progress, roll
the die at the end of the day.
2. If you roll 1, the card is blocked.
3. Place a blocker sticky on the
card.
At the beginning of the next day, roll
the die for each blocked card.
• 1, 2 or 3 = still blocked (no work can
be done on it that day)
• 4, 5 or 6 = unblocked (remove the
sticky, continue work)
A ❍❍❍❍
B ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
C ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
D ❍❍❍
Team____________ ❍❍❍❍
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Delivery Time
Rework
1. For each delivered card, roll the
die at the end of the day.
2. If you roll 1, the card requires
rework.
3. Move the card back to queue D.
4. In subsequent days, redo the
work in queue D.
(Roll for rework only once per
delivered card.)
A ❍❍
B ❍❍
C ❍❍
D ❍❍❍
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Delivery Time
Urgent Cards
• Deliver as soon as possible
• Your team loses a point for every day it takes to deliver
Estimate
Start Day
Deliver Day
Urgent
A ❍❍❍❍
B ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
C ❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
D ❍❍❍
Team____________ ❍❍❍❍
Delivery Time
Daily Actions
1. Start: Have a flow-planning meeting to plan day’s strategy
• Decide how to use your total effort points
• Pull in as many cards as you want and record the day for commit
date
• Roll to resolve any blocked cards (4, 5 or 6 = unblocked)
2. Middle:
• Tick off work on the cards and move them accordingly
3. End:
• For each delivered card:
• Roll die to determine if it needs rework (1 = rework)
• Record the day delivered
• For each card in progress
• Roll die to determine if it’s blocked (1 = blocked)
• Cross off the day on the day tracker
For your team…
• What do you estimate your velocity to be?
• What do the points translate to in days?
For example:
Points-Estimate Range
Days
6-10 points
1 day
11-16
2 days
17-24
4 days
25-39
7 days
On your mark,
get set,
go!
Debrief
• When we estimate, what is the underlying
assumption about its relationship to delivery time?
• What sources of variation did you experience?
• What was the correlation of delivery times and
estimates?
• What was the best strategy?
• How do we reduce variation?
Probabilistic Forecasting
• What if you had tried to forecast using estimates?
• Do we have better ways of forecasting?
Blocker Clustering
• Keep track of your blockers
• For each day that it is blocked, dot the card
• At the end of the game, count the blockers:
• Number/rate of occurrence
• Total number of days blocked
• Reason for block
Context Switching
• If a team concurrently works on more cards than it has
team members, it incurs a penalty for each card beyond
the team size.
• For example:
• Cards in progress: 6
• Team size: 4 people
• Penalty: 2 points (16-2=14 new capacity)