It may not become a tradition, but after the crowd left on Thanksgiving day this year, my adult children and I sat down to play a round of The Agile Fluency® Game. For those of you unfamiliar with this euro-style board game, The Agile Fluency Game is a simulation of a software development team's Agile adoption over a two and a half year time period. If you can make it through all ten rounds, the game lasts about 90 minutes, but it's not that easy. Most first time players will end up having their project canceled!

The game is surprisingly fun and frustrating as the play realistically simulates the benefits, tradeoffs, investments and, yes, perils of a team adopting Agile. While my daughter and son work for separate companies and are not on the same Agile team, they were soon into the game and strategizing on how to make money and keep the project going. After the first game ended, they literally begged to play another round.

The Agile Fluency Game is the brainchild of James Shore and Arlo Belshee with artwork by Eric Wahlquist and is an outgrowth of the Agile Fluency Model. If you're interested in learning more about the game, visit https://www.agilefluency.org/game.php or contact me for more information. Interested in playing the game? Let me know and we can discuss how to make that happen!

— Jim