LeSS Simulation: Create a City Guide
LeSS Simulation: Create a City Guide
The LeSS City Guide Simulation is an engaging, hands-on activity that immerses participants in the dynamics of multiple teams collaborating on a single product. As an evolved version of the Nexus Zoo simulation, this exercise shifts the focus to a practical and relatable project: creating a city guide paper brochure for the training’s host city. It introduces events typical of LeSS adoptions, such as the Self-Design Team Workshop and Multi-Team Refinement, to help participants experience the unique aspects of LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) and contrast them with traditional Scrum.
The simulation highlights the complexities and challenges of scaling Scrum, offering participants valuable insights into team collaboration, product integration, and systemic improvement.
Why the City Guide Simulation?
This activity mirrors real-world challenges by having participants create a tangible product with customer value. It is typically run before formally introducing LeSS events, allowing participants to better understand how LeSS differs from Scrum and fostering deeper learning.
Materials Needed
- Colored voting dots (green, red, blue, yellow)
- Large post-its
- Colored A4 paper
- Pens and markers
- Transparent binder and puncher
- Stopwatch or timer
Simulation Steps
1. Self-Design Team Workshop
The simulation begins with participants forming their own teams during a Self-Design Team Workshop. Colored voting dots represent key skills:
- Green: Knowledge of the local city
- Red: Drawing skills
- Blue: Handwriting
- Yellow: Ability to use Tripadvisor on their phone
Participants choose dots corresponding to their skills, which they display on their name tags. Teams of 4-5 members are then formed through self-organization, ensuring that each team has all 4 required skills.
2. Multi-Team Product Backlog Refinement
The Product Owner (PO), typically the trainer or co-trainer, presents the product goal: creating a local city guide paper brochure and gathering feedback as soon as possible.
Initial backlog items:
- Cover Page
- Must-See Attractions
- Museums
- Restaurants
- Hidden Gems
- Current Events
Participants refine the items in mixed groups across teams. Each group creates:
- A suggested list (e.g., top 5 attractions)
- A page layout (e.g., drawings, maps, or text placement)
After a time-boxed refinement session, all participants walk around the room, and each group presents their work. A second round of refinement may follow to add further details if needed. Alternatively, instead of having each group present their work to everyone, one person stays at the board while each group moves to another slot to continue refining what the previous group worked on. At the end of the Multi-Team PBR, the PO collects the post-its with the most interesting items (e.g., Must-See Attractions, Museums) to update the Product Backlog.
3. Definition of Done (DoD)
The PO establishes a Definition of Done, including:
- One page per item
- No consecutive pages of the same color
- An integrated product
- A shared copyright on each page
- Clear handwriting and error-free grammar
4. Sprint Planning
During Sprint Planning, the PO presents the top backlog items one at a time in a given sequence. For each item, the PO asks which team wants to implement it. Once a team volunteers to take an item, the PO moves on to the next item. This ensures that items are taken in order of priority while respecting the teams' remaining capacities. The list could look as follows:
- Cover Page
- Must-See Attraction 1
- Must-See Attraction 2
- Museum 1
- Museum 2
- Must-See Attraction 3
- Museum 3
5. The Sprint
With a visible timer, teams work to complete an increment meeting the Definition of Done. The PO provides feedback and answers questions but avoids direct intervention.
6. Sprint Review
When the Sprint ends, the Sprint Review takes place immediately, during which the completed work is inspected. The trainer sets a timer to keep the Sprint Review concise.
7. Retrospectives
After the Sprint Review, each team holds a Team Retrospective to discuss what went well and what could be improved. Afterward, the entire group participates in an Overall Retrospective, which includes the PO. This retrospective focuses on systemic improvements for the next iteration.
Common Challenges and Learning Opportunities
The simulation reveals challenges typical of large product development environments, offering valuable learning opportunities for participants:
- Insufficient PO Interaction: Teams often do not ask the PO questions about the product, such as the city guide title or copyright. In LeSS (like in Scrum), the PO is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the team's work and should involve the team in product decisions while retaining authority over key decisions.
- Lack of Integration: Participants often miss the tools for integrating pages (e.g., puncher and binder) and usually just present individual pages in the Sprint Review. In LeSS, it is important to have an integrated product that is handed over to stakeholders (e.g., customers) at the end of the Sprint.
- Delayed Integration: Teams often integrate their pages into the binder only at the end of the Sprint, rather than continuously as pages are completed. In LeSS, continuous integration is encouraged to avoid last-minute issues and increase learning by observing what other teams are doing.
- Poor Inter-Team Communication: Teams often struggle to coordinate on items that should be consistent across all pages (e.g., copyright). This underscores the importance of direct communication and real-time collaboration. In LeSS, team members are encouraged to coordinate directly by walking over and discussing whenever needed.
- Unfinished Work: If pages are incomplete at the end of the Sprint (e.g., drawing is not finished), the PO may add these items to the backlog for the next iteration.
Step 8: Debrief and Key Takeaways
The simulation usually involves at least one more iteration to allow teams to apply their improvement strategies and learnings. At the end of the simulation, a debrief session takes place to highlight key takeaways. Common debrief questions include:
- What differences do you see between Scrum and the way you worked in the simulation?
- What worked well in terms of communication between teams? What challenges did teams face in coordinating with each other? How did you ensure consistency across different pages?
- What were the key challenges of delayed integration, and how could they have been mitigated?
Suggested Timings
- Multi-Team PBR: 8 minutes
- Sprint: 10 minutes
- Sprint Review: 3 minutes
- Team Retrospective: 3 minutes
- Other events: Flexible, but ensure sufficient time for meaningful discussions without overextending the schedule.
Facilitation Tips
- Multi-Team PBR: The PO should offer one item at a time (one item for a group of 3-4 people). Teams sitting at their team tables should decide how to split into different refinement groups. The PO can answer questions about what should be done but should not be overly involved in discussing details.
In order for the PO to easily create the backlog at the end of the PBR, distribute large post-its and ask the teams to use them for the suggested attractions, museums, etc.
- Sprint Planning: Ensure that instead of one team picking similar items (e.g., two museums), those items are distributed across multiple teams to promote cross-team learning and adaptability.
- Sprint Execution: As a facilitator and/or PO, provide honest feedback on participants' work but avoid giving direct guidance on how to proceed. Instead, encourage participants to think for themselves. For example, when asked about specific product details (e.g., copyright), respond with questions that prompt participants to come up with their own solutions. If asked how to coordinate that every team uses the same copyright, say, "I don't know. What do you think?"
Conclusion
The LeSS City Guide Simulation is a powerful way to demonstrate the dynamics of multi-team Scrum. By focusing on collaboration, dependency management, and continuous improvement, participants gain practical insights into scaling Scrum effectively.
