AGILE GAMES

Remote Comunication

AGILE GAMES

Remote Comunication

In these times of remote teams, it is always difficult to generate pleasant team dynamics.

I have used this dynamic several times, it helps me to improve communication, cohesion, and participation within the teams.

Checklist

  • The video game “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”, can be any mobile or desktop version (It can be found in the Steam store). https://keeptalkinggame.com/
  • The manual for the game (it’s in different languages) https://www.bombmanual.com/
  • Some video call software (Teams, Zoom, Meets, Skype)
  • Disposition

“Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes” is a game where you have to defuse a bomb, at a certain time which contains different modules (varies according to the difficulty), whereas using a manual you can disarm these modules (sounds some agility value).

The dynamics are easy, someone on the team has to be the one who disarms the bomb (bomb operator), and the other members guide the one who disarms the bomb (manual instructors), looking at the manual, they should not see the screen of who is the bomb operator, they should only be focused on the manual and the descriptions of the operator.

Then do several iterations (much better if the role of the operator changes in each iteration).
Until the team decides or the time is up.

Close by talking about how the team felt about the dynamics.

Questions to ask

  • What did we learn?
  • Which role is more difficult, pump operator or manual instructor?
  • How can we improve (in case of constant failures)?

I hope you enjoy it and use it as much as I do, I look forward to your feedback.

About Tasty Cupcakes

This content was originally published on Tasty Cupcakes, a community-run website founded by Michael McCullough and Don McGreal after they presented a series of games at Agile2008 in Toronto. The site’s tagline was “fuel for invention and learning.” After 15 years at TastyCupcakes.org, the content has found a new permanent home here at Agile Alliance.

The games, techniques, and approaches presented are here to use and explore. All we ask is that you tell others about us and give us some feedback on the games themselves. All of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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