Changeban is our Lean Startup-flavoured Kanban simulation game. It is based on our classic game Featureban, with easier mechanics, a Lean Startup-inspired board design, and some different learning objectives. Both games are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (Yay! Open!).

As promised a couple of days ago in the April roundup, the Changeban page now includes a video of a game session recorded at last month’s London workshop. I’m grateful to Agendashift partner Steven Mackenzie for its production. You’ll find it and loads more information at agendashift.com/changeban.

Questions? Channel #changeban in the Agendashift Slack; request access here. 

In store for Featureban

At around the 37:05 mark you will notice this exchange:

Dragan: Can a work item – a sticky – move more than one step in a round?

Mike: Yes they can. I know where that question is coming from – if you’ve played Featureban, the rules discourage the cards from moving more than one column per round (per day). The reason for that is technical, and it’s annoying, and it makes the rules unnecessarily complicated. The language is changed in Changeban so that it’s just that if you can’t do anything for yourself, you help somebody.

The Featureban rules in question are those that mention pairing. Instead of helping someone (anyone!) as Changeban allows, you’re allowed to pair up only with someone who can’t otherwise move. These rather frustrating rules generate more questions than the rest put together! The technical issue I mention in the video is that disallowing cards from moving more than one column in a day happens to make the calculation of flow efficiency in the metrics iteration very easy. I’m convinced now that the complication and restrictiveness is an unnecessarily high price to pay.

Admittedly I’ve been saying this for a while (I also had a book to finish!), but soon(ish) I will publish a Featureban 3.0 beta version that ditches the pairing rules in favour of Changeban’s much kinder “help someone” rules. While I’m at it, I’ll complete the transition from coins to playing cards as the source of variation.

Upcoming workshops – Boston, Berlin, Oslo, and Stockholm

• 16-17 May 2019, Boston, MA, USA:
  Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation
• 22-23 May 2019, Berlin, Germany:
  Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation
• 3-4 June 2019, Stockholm, Sweden:
  Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation
• 6-7 June 2019, Oslo, Norway:
  Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation

Watch this space for Greece, Turkey, London, and the Benelux region in the autumn.