Artists and Specifiers: experimenting with Agile principles

As part of my Agile training and after several iterations, I wondered how I could talk about Agile principles without it being too off-putting and boring. Indeed, already that in general I presented just before the 4 values of Agility (even the 8 half-values), continuing with the 12 principles could tend to stun the audience! I then remembered Artists and Specifiers, an essential workshop which I had very fond memories of the first time I had experienced it.

Draw the Drawing Game of its original name is a game hosted by Alistair Cockburn since the end of the 90s in its training. It is based on Larry Constantine's communication game to which it brings a variant: 3 iterations to allow participants to experience the Reflection Workshop and feel like you're getting better.

I propose in this article to describe to you the way in which I animate it today, what can tend to happen and the elements of debriefing associated with the Agile principles that I bring to the end.

Wishing you an excellent read! 🙂

Material

• Drawings for the different rounds, I use for my part this set with :
  • Round 1: the 5th
  • Round 2: the 4th
  • Round 3: this photo – the idea being to increase the complexity as and when

Note : I find that having printed / laminated copies is really interesting.

• A4 sheets
• Felt pens of different colors
• Tables and chairs for comfort 😛

Optional : 2 different rooms to physically separate the participants

Instructions

Team structure

Each team is made up of 2 roles:

• Specifier: writes the client's project specifications
• Artist: carries out the client's project

Note: the recommended team size is 5 people with 2 artists and 3 specifiers. Now what matters is to have at least 2 specifiers due to the additional role of messenger (cf. constraints).

Constraints

• Specifiers and Artists are physically separated : at best in separate rooms, otherwise in the corners of the room

Note: I much prefer the use of several rooms because it takes the pressure off the gaze of the other people in the group. Now, this is not always possible in terms of logistics.

• Specifiers must write their instructions literally and linear to the Artists, no drawing.

Note: Particularly creative participants have already written their instructions literally by recreating the shapes of the drawing, hence the importance of “linear”! 😛

• The only authorized means of communication between Specifiers and Artists is writing. The Specifiers can communicate orally with each other, the same for the Artists.

Note: It may be useful to specify that Artists can also communicate with Specifiers to ask questions, but only in writing. However, they are not allowed to move (see next constraint).

• One Specifier at a time will act as messenger between the groups, he can remain to observe the Artists but is not allowed to speak to them. He also does not have the right to respond directly to the Artists (even in writing), he must first come back to the Specifier side.

Note: "One at a time" is optional. On the other hand, I want the constraint which forces the messenger to return to the Specifier side to answer because it is for me a way of showing the " cost of misunderstanding“.

Objective

The team must carry out the client's project and deliver the result after the 10-minute round.

Note: I tend to repeat the objective several times in the sense that the project must be book after 10 minutes.

Note: There will be 3 rounds production of 10 minutes each. By adding the discussion and debriefing phases, the workshop lasts about 1 hour on my side.

Round 1

Before launching the first Round, I separate the Artists from the Specifiers in 2 different rooms. I then invite the Artists to go to the second room because I will project the drawing to be made on the screen. The interest of projecting is simply to agree on the meaning because just with A4 format copies, there are at least 4 ways of seeing the thing! 😛

The drawing displayed and the copies distributed, I start the 10-minute timer. I then go to the Artists' room, closing the door tightly so that the Specifiers are not under pressure from the gaze. I generally take the opportunity to chat quietly with the Artists while waiting! 🙂

In general, the first Specifiers arrive around 5 minutes. You can often feel the pressure on Artists whose Specifiers haven't arrived yet! This is also the moment when the Specifiers realize that what seemed clear to them is not necessarily so! 😛

Sometimes Specifiers drop their instructions and walk away, which can cause some frustration on the Artist side:

Note: If after 7-8 minutes no one has come, I then go back to remind the Specifiers that the product must be delivered to the customer after 10 minutes in order to get them moving. This often generates a movement of panic and remarks of the type: “But we thought it was just for the 10-minute specification! ». It is interesting to see that we often hear / understand what we want! 😛

In this case, Artists generally receive a large amount of information with very little time to process it. To mark the end of time even more approaching, I tend to count down the last 10 seconds near the Artists which can lead to interesting behaviors: do I stop with what I have or do I what I try a bluff hoping that it passes?

Here are some results obtained:

Round 1 Debrief

Round 1 aims to show a "Traditional" mode of operation with specialized silo operation, a one-off mode of communication and generally an anxiety-inducing tunnel effect for the downstream parties.

Some additional debriefing:

Distance and Membership

Many teams today are relocated/distributed and the distance constraint is often underestimated. It is in this first round that we can see in action the famous proverb " Out of sight out of mind " because Specifiers may tend to forget that the time they use for specifications has an impact on the collective time. So it is the downstream process that undergoes the actions of the upstream process, and the further one is downstream, the more one undergoes!

We see here very well the separation of the 2 groups – on one side the Specifiers, on the other the Artists – while they are part of the same team. Does this remind you of anything? 😛

Facilitation tips :

• Physically and visually separate Specifiers and Artists
• Go out so as not to influence the Specifiers by his presence

Specialization

Specialization, in addition to physical isolation, means that everyone can tend to forget that the objective is common. The Specifiers do their best to be able to specify everything and the Artists to realize everything that is provided to them. But isn't the goal to deliver the greatest possible value to the customer? 🙂

Facilitation tips :

• Remember to remind the Specifiers of the objective if none have moved around 7-8 minutes

We <-> Them

The famous " We <-> Them » that I describe in my workshop « Traditional vs Agile feels good here:

Side Artists :

• When the other team's Specifier arrives and theirs still hasn't arrived: But what are they doing!" 
• When the instruction is not understandable to them: “But it's not clear! »

Side Specifiers :

• When they receive questions about elements that seemed clear to them: "They didn't understand anything! »

Customer

The client is usually ignored in this part. He gives the drawing at the start, comes back at the end, and generally is not particularly satisfied with what is offered to him! 😛

Facilitation tips :

• By taking on the role of client for the debriefing of the Round, you can mark this dissatisfaction linked to the result obtained.

Communication

We can see some Specifiers file their instructions on the Artists' desk and leave to be able to start producing again to supply new Artists. How to interact effectively if one of the parties is not listening or does not put themselves in a position to be able to listen?

This Round often emphasizes a one-way/top-down mode of communication where Specifiers issue an instruction and Artists must execute quickly. The bi-directional aspect is very little marked.

Retrospective Round 1

After experiencing the first Production Round, I invite teams to take 5 minutes to think about how to improve for next time. I therefore suggest that they follow the following framework:

Note: This frame is from Alistair Cockburn's Reflexion Workshop.

After these 5 minutes of reflection between teammates, I invite the teams to share their results in the whole group, recalling the end of the first sentence of the Agile Manifesto “…and helping others to do so”. Indeed, we can always draw inspiration from others while keeping in mind that these are only additional options. We are free to take them or leave them.

Elements that often emerge from this phase :

• Trigger the first round trip faster
• Make more round trips to be able to deal with potential questions
• Cut instructions into smaller pieces, operate in smaller batches
• Describe first a global vision of what needs to be done to better understand the local descriptions later
• Define a shared mode of communication: begin sentences with action verbs, use elements of measurement, order instructions, etc.
• Get validation feedback as you go

Facilitation tips :

• Timeboxing this part is important to keep a certain consistency in the workshop: I remind you that the production lasted only 10 minutes
• In addition, it forces participants to go as simple as possible in their improvement strategy.
• Facilitating exchanges during the sharing in a full group is necessary to focus the participants because they will tend to discuss between the members of their team.

Round 2

I invite the Artists to return to their room before projecting the next drawing:

There are usually a few reactions to the posting of this new challenge, which I always find quite funny! 😈

Round 2 is more hectic. The first round trips often arrive before the end of the first minute. Doors open and close more often (if participants are in separate rooms). Besides, I take the opportunity myself to spice up the experience by always making sure that the doors are properly closed: if a door remains open, I close it discreetly.

The successive round trips give the Artists the opportunity to ask their questions. Communication is going well in both directions this time and the Specifiers write to be understood and no longer to write a specification. However, the client is no more solicited than in Round 1.

Some results:

Round 2 Debrief

This second Round highlights an operation in open silos, that is to say that the silos still exist but the doors have opened in order to have more fluid communication.

Some additional debriefing:

Distance and Membership

To manage the problem of distance while maintaining silos, the teams are setting up more frequent round trips in order to remind people of their presence and belonging to the same team. This is what we try to do in business by organizing face-to-face meetings on a regular basis so as not to forget that there are many people opposite and not just names or identifiers! 😛

Communication

Each is still in its silo and therefore remains specialized. However, Specifiers may tend in this round not to write for the sake of writing, but to ensure that the way they write is going to be understood by the Artists.

It can be seen in different aspects:

• The retrospective may have brought out a shared communication structure
• Artists sometimes have a space where they put their questions and another where they process instructions
• The Specifiers stay longer with the Artists: in case there are questions, to see how they perceive the messages received in order to better understand misunderstandings and to be able to validate what has been produced afterwards
• Some Specifiers, seeing a misunderstanding materialize on the drawing, will hasten to make a round trip to be able to report it to the Artists: the effort is therefore implemented for the collective

The Specifiers, due to their messenger constraint, are those whose behavioral change is the most observable. They are often more attentive to the Artists to be able to send them the right information at the right time.

Cost of misunderstanding

I had put as an initial constraint the fact that a Specifier could not respond directly, even in writing, if he was at the Artists. He is therefore obliged to make a round trip to provide his answer. This is for me a way of materializing the cost of misunderstanding: to make an additional return trip is to waste time, and as we usually say the time is money ! 😛

Indeed, people may tend to neglect the content of their messages. I'm not just talking about the intonation that can be perceived through a written message but the pure incomprehension related to an interpretation of the words that are written. This does indeed have a cost, unfortunately masked by the speed of today's means of communication (emails, chats, etc.).

Silo "doors"

I told you that I was very careful to close the doors that remained open between each round trip of the participants, and we must admit that there are a lot of them! 🙂

So I often ask in debriefing if the doors were a factor of irritation during this Round. This is not always the case, but with a little hindsight the participants often realize that they tended to leave the door open (which I hastened to close! 👿 ), which was not the case in Round 1.

You will probably have understood it, my initial intention here is to materialize in a metaphorical way these famous doors which make the separation between the silos. When you want the communication to be smoother, it is necessary to leave them open otherwise there will always be an additional delay.

Customer prioritization and inclusion

The customer is often still the forgotten one of this Round despite the growing complexity of the proposed design.

• Wanting to do everything even if it's impossible

When you saw the requested drawing, did you even hope you could do it all?

The answer is often unanimous:

No, but we're going anyway!

• Do not negotiate with the customer

I always find it surprising to see that even if the demand seems excessive, the fear of going to see the client to negotiate is very present.

When I share this with attendees, the response I get is often: “But we had the right to go and see the client? »

I remind you here that the workshop instructions defined an objective and constraints, that of going to see the customer was not one of them! 😛

Note: To the detriment of the participants, the animation of this workshop alone can lead to vagueness. Do you talk to them as a host or as a customer?

Facilitation tips :

Take an object (cap, tie, etc.) to make the role you play clearer depending on the discussion periods.

• Prioritize according to your own criteria

It often happens that for fear of asking the client, priorities are made according to our own criteria. This is what we see most of the time in this second Round.

I then take the opportunity to question the participants:

Knowing that you weren't going to be able to do everything, how did you select the elements you were going to do?

=> We chose what was the easiest to do for us!

How could you know that what you chose had value for the customer?

=> We don't know!

How could you have known that?

=> Ask the customer!

And the circle is complete ! 😎

Round 3

This third Round is slightly different from the previous two. Indeed, we could put the quality of the results obtained on the back of the physical separation and the lack of oral communication, right? Well let's put these 2 elements back in place in the teams and see what will change.

These characteristics fundamentally changing the dynamics of the Round, I decided not to do a retrospective at the end of Round 2 because it was difficult to really capitalize on it.

I then distribute or project the last drawing to be made:

A few amusing reactions usually arise upon seeing the photo. I remind you, however, that the objective remains the same: to carry out the project as precisely as possible and deliver it to the client within 10 minutes.

Following the debriefing of Round 2, it may happen that Specifiers who have learned the lesson well come to see me as a client to ask me to prioritize.

If you ask me the question:

What is important to you in this drawing?

I naturally answer:

All

Isn't that what a customer would do? 😛

I help them all the same by asking them to change their question:

What would you like to have first, second, third…?

Indeed, what really matters is the scheduling of business priorities, which clearly gives co-responsibility for the project to the different parties – including the client.

I then answer:

1. The big block in the center is essential for me
2. The character on the rock on the side

I can sometimes add that my initial need was to have a landscape with a perspective view: the vision of a particularly large object (the big rock) compared to another smaller one (the character).

After a few minutes, I tend to get closer to the teams that came to see me at the very start to see where they are.

As a facilitator, I ask them:

How can you know that what you have achieved is what the customer wants?

=> We show him and we ask him!

That's it, I'm rambling! 😛

Indeed, habits are difficult to change and I often share a postulate at this time:

Users only know what they want once after seeing a first version of the product

– Uncertainty principle of Humphrey's requirements

Put another way :

The customer only knows what he wants when he sees it

I then take the opportunity to go a little further in the experiment and tell them:

Now that I see what you have achieved, I tell myself that my initial vision was perhaps not adequate – a little too arid, dry – whereas I am rather an optimist! I would like to have a landscape that would represent life more, in which we could get lost and dream! 🙂

Could you add a bit of nature to me? Trees, vegetation… or even animals?

Note: Sometimes I also ask to change the location of the character to put it on the left side! 😛

Generally, participants give free rein to their creativity at this time and weave a more relaxed relationship between them (the production team) and me (the client). I also leave them the freedom to achieve what they want in the sense that I trust that they have understood my need.

It's when the debriefing comes and I show the results that the other participants are particularly surprised! 😛

Some results:

Round 3 Debrief

Customer-supplier relationship

We can see in this Round a relationship that goes from “customer – supplier” or “I tell you what I want and you do it” to a partnership relationship “I tell you what I think I want and we will move forward together within budget (time, effort)”.

Staying close allows you to weave a different bond: the client is included in the process of realization and at the same time he has a certain responsibility in the result. So there are few surprises. Negotiation becomes more natural while respecting everyone's constraints.

Static vs. dynamic need

We can see a difference in the steps taken:

Traditional Approach :

• Even if there is potentially a request for prioritization from the client at the start of the Round, this priority is not questioned afterwards.
• The result is not shown/delivered to the client before the time runs out
• No relationship with the client outside of the first meeting, no negotiation
• A response to the initial need: a risk of not being in line with the need at the time of delivery

Agile approach :

• Customer initial prioritization request
• Request for validation / feedback on what has been produced: which leads to an iterative and incremental production mode
• A dynamic consideration of changes by learning from the customer about his needs: which guarantees the probability of customer satisfaction on delivery
• Ongoing negotiation with the client to challenge the need and relate it to the implementation effort

Limits of oral communication

One of the objectives of this Round is also to show that despite the physical rapprochement and oral communication, this is not enough if the complexity of the project is too great. There is therefore a need to equip oneself in order to be able to better understand oneself, experiment and validate: prototyping, drawings on whiteboard, models….

Links with the 12 Agile principles

I said that initially this workshop was a way for me to introduce Agile principles other than by going through them one by one. However, I tend to quickly go over it after the fact but recalling moments of the activity.

Here are some openings:

Our highest priority is to to satisfy the client by delivering quickly and regularly features to great added value.

• To satisfy the client : all activity is centered around customer satisfaction even if its role only becomes really visible at the end of Round 2
• Deliver quickly : the notion of fast delivery comes into play when participants realize that the first round trip must occur early so as not to be caught out by the weather
• Deliver regularly : the notion of regularity can intervene in Round 3 when the productions are presented progressively to the customer to ensure that it always meets his needs
• Great added value : the notion of added value comes into play when we talk about prioritization. It is therefore mainly in Round 3 that this is highlighted during exchanges with the customer.

Welcome changing needs, even late in the project. Agile processes harness change to give the customer a competitive advantage.

• Accommodate changing needs : the most obvious manifestation is in Round 3 during exchanges with the customer who updates his vision in relation to what he will learn from his need

Deliver frequently working software with some rounds from a few weeks to a few months and a preference for the longer short.

• Operational software : The only hint of a completed product or “feature” comes in Round 3 when participants show part of the customer request.
• Short cycles : we see it especially in Round 2 when the round trips participants are more numerous. Exchanges between Specifiers and Artists are therefore closer.

Users or their representatives and developers must work together daily all along the project.

• Working together daily : Round 2 already shows a regular way of working between the different parts of the chain, with regular feedback loops. However, it is only in Round 3 that this feedback loop goes all the way, that is to say until the end customer!

Carry out projects with motivated people. Provide them withenvironment and the support they need and trust them to achieve the set objectives.

• Motivated people : the people who participate in the workshop are generally in training which means that they are therefore in a generally "motivated" mindset to learn
• Provide an environment : the framework of the workshop is made to create a benevolent environment
• Trust : as a facilitator and as a client, I have no doubt that the participants are able to achieve the objectives. They will make mistakes along the way, but this is all just for their learning.

Note: this principle is therefore fulfilled above all by the framework of the workshop, in my opinion.

The simplest and most effective method of conveying information to and within the development team is the face-to-face dialogue.

• Face-to-face dialogue : it is the main constraint which is put on the participants. They usually realize that it is much easier when you can trade face to face in Round 3 even if the complexity of the drawing is much greater.

A operational software is the main progress measure.

• Progress measurement : there is not much notion of measurement in the workshop. However, reconciliation can be done in Round 3 when participants move forward with client validations. Indeed, these successive validations guarantee the real progress of the project – as well as customer satisfaction – with the dynamic consideration of changes. The other teams move forward in the dark until they deliver a product that responds well to the initial need but no longer meets the current need.

Agile processes encourage a sustainable pace of development. Together, sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a steady pace indefinitely.

• Sustainable pace : I think that this principle is especially fulfilled by the framework of the workshop. Production rates are 10 minutes.

Continued attention to technical excellence and good design enhances Agility.

• Good Design and Technical Excellence : we do not put forward here the technical quality of the drawings but especially their adequacy with the initial request. Some participants can nevertheless make prototypes of requests – make quick drawings on a separate sheet for example rather than directly on their final drawing – which allows them to avoid having to start all over again if they make a mistake. This case for me can be linked to a need for a stable technical base to support changing needs.

There simplicity – that is, the art of minimizing the amount of unnecessary work – is essential.

• Simplicity : We can see this principle at all levels. The imposed production rhythm involves going to the essentials, the retrospective makes it possible to simplify communication and exchanges, the prioritization makes it possible to simplify the initial request.

The best architectures, specifications and designs emerge fromself-organizing teams.

• Self-organization : the workshop defined an objective and constraints which defines the framework of freedom in which the teams can safely take initiatives. We are therefore in a self-organized mode of operation throughout the workshop.

At regular intervals, the team think about ways to become more efficient, then adjusts and modifies its behavior accordingly.

• Reflect to become more efficient : participants practice this principle during the retrospective at the end of Round 1.

Conclusion

Artists and Specifiers is not a must for nothing: it is a very complete workshop that allows you to experiment with Agile principles in a playful and fun way!

Besides, I often have as much fun leading it as the participants live it, which for me is an excellent indicator! Depending on the time and the intention you have, this workshop gives you flexibility in the debriefing and thus allows you to highlight the learnings that seem most relevant to you.

I therefore highly recommend it! :-