Resort brochure

In teams of four or more, participants must agree on a wish list for what they would like to see in a brochure for their ultimate resort. Using index cards, teams must then write user stories for the brochure (e.g. As a parent, I want a kid friendly atmosphere so that I can feel comfortable bringing children; As an owner, I want to advertise a special offer so that I can attract more vacationers; etc.). The team’s elected Product Owner must then prioritize each story by placing the cards in order of importance.

The teams then prepare for a 12 minute iteration (three 4 minute days) by selecting which stories they think they can accomplish in the first iteration. For each selected story, the team defines acceptance criteria (definition of ‘done’) in order to clarify requirements and to extract tasks (e.g. find picture of beach, write the resort name on brochure, create layout, etc.). Each task is placed on an iteration status board in the ‘Scheduled’ column and the iteration starts.

Each day of the iteration should start with a quick Scrum meeting, where the participants move tasks over to the ‘Completed’ column and volunteer for tasks by moving them over to the ‘Active’ column. Any blocked tasks are moved to the ‘Blocked’ column. After the Scrum meeting, each member should start producing in accordance with the acceptance criteria until the three days and the iteration end. An iteration should end with a demo of their progress and a retrospective, in which each team lists what they did well and what they can improve on for the next iteration. Repeat iterations as necessary.