Comments on: Encourage Playing Games at Office

By: James Grenning

James Grenning — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:17:22 +0000

I was hosting a poker game last week and started thinking how other planning activities relate to games. So I wrote this up.

http://www.renaissancesoftware.net/blog/archives/36

By: Jelena

Jelena — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:50:08 +0000

I deeply agree on importance of playing. IMO, playing is a way of performing an activity, not the activity itself, as many seem to understand it.

Playing keeps us interested in whatever we actually do while playing.

In attempts to develop “sophisticated” (that actually often are – complicated) methods, we tend to drift away from the most optimal ways we have embedded within us, how to learn new things and achieve our aims.

As you underlined, children follow a similar pattern and learn so much through seemingly aimless play. The inspiration and joy coming from playing motivates one in performing the actual activity.

Our family cats play, or are ready to play all the time while awake. They are alert and interested. Sometimes I think that many people I work with are much less happy than those cats. My kitties seem to have so much fun. But what stops those people having fun while working? Those sophisticated, widely accepted methods of work, and ideas that stiff equals professional etc?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Who wants to be dull? No, thank you. :)

By: Staffan Nöteberg

Staffan Nöteberg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:33:57 +0000

Thanks for sharing this story, James. A nice thing about Planning Poker is also that it’s compatible with further improvement, like adding new card types, e.g. Coffee break or To vague description.

By: James Grenning

James Grenning — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:27:24 +0000

Nice account of tiny games and planing poker. I wanted to add one of the main motivations behind planning poker to your list: getting all the people in the room engaged in the planning process. In its inaugural use we had two people dominating the estimates, and discussing each story for way too long. The rest of the team was nodding off, wishing they were somewhere else. I had everyone write their estimate on a note card and show all at once. After a few rounds everyone had a handful of cards. It looked like a poker game.