As long promised, there is now an official 3.0 version of Featureban that incorporates the best of Changeban, making it easier to facilitate and more fun to play. Changeban itself has a new version 1.2 after some weeks in beta.
For the uninitiated, Featureban is (and I quote) our simple, fun, and highly customisable kanban simulation game. Since its creation in 2014 it has been used by trainers and coaches in Lean, Agile and Kanban-related events the world over. Changeban was derived from Featureban and retains many similarities, which is how improvements to Changeban have ultimately benefited Featureban too.
Which to use?
- Featureban if you’re teaching Kanban in a development context and/or want to teach Kanban metrics
- Changeban for most other purposes
I don’t go out of my way to advertise Kanban training. No big drama there but I have other priorities now and there’s no shortage of people who can do it. However, being the author of a recommended book has its privileges and I do get asked from time to time! In accordance with my “experience before explanation” mantra I always start any training with Featureban. I get to use Changeban rather more often these days – it’s a fixture at Advanced Agendashift workshops (see public workshop listings at the end of this announcement).
Key changes:
- For Changeban, version 1.0 represented the completion of a transition from the use of coins as the source of variation to the use of cards instead (more on those in a moment). Featureban 3.0 does the same, with a transitional (coins or cards) version 2.3 and a classic 2.2 version (coins only) still available for old times’ sake in the Dropbox.
- Affecting Featureban only, its biggest source of confusion has been eliminated. There is now no mention of pairing and gone are the well-intentioned but non-obvious restrictions that went with that; instead players may “help someone” (anyone!) if they’re out of other options. There is a small price to pay and it’s the reason for my hesitation to address the frustration: the flow efficiency calculation in the spreadsheet is now merely an estimate.
- Changes to the slides to make both games quicker and easier to introduce. Changeban has improved in this regard even since the recent video! Thank you (once again) to Steven Mackenzie for the nudge and for your own experiments.
- For practical reasons, it was a mistake on my part to distribute Featureban by sharing links to individual files. There’s now a single combined Dropbox folder with all the files (original sources, PDFs, and translations) for both games. Once you’re subscribed, you’ll always have access to the latest.
Cards:
Coins are not only less ubiquitous than once they were (it’s amazing how times change), they’re fiddly to handle, and they lack the replayability of cards. Trust me, once you’ve made the switch, you won’t want to go back!
Regular playing cards work well enough but I prefer to use these printed cards with the colour-specific rules on them:
These 65mm square cards were done by Moo (advertised as square business cards). We’re very happy with the results from testing but will continue to experiment with other formats. One small niggle here: the accept/reject rule shown here at the bottom of each card applies only to Changeban; this is made clearer in the most recent sources.
Open!
Featureban was one of my earliest experiments in Creative Commons licensing, and never a moment’s regret! Both games are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
Check out blog posts tagged open for more on our commitments in this area.
Subscribe! Collaborate!
Go to either Featureban or Changeban and request your combined Dropbox invite there. It’s not essential that you subscribe to the two individually – the folder is the same but feel free if you want to signal your interest in both.
And if you haven’t already, I would strongly recommend joining the #featureban and #changeban channels in the Agendashift Slack.
Upcoming Agendashift workshops
(Online, Stockholm, Athens, London, Istanbul, Berlin)
- 26-27 June, Online – two 2h sessions on consecutive days:
Learning the language of outcomes (two 2h online sessions) - 16-17 July, Online – two 2h sessions on consecutive days:
Learning the language of outcomes (two 2h online sessions) - 9-10 September, Stockholm, Sweden (myself and Kjell Tore Guttormsen):
2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation - 17-18 September, Athens, Greece (myself and Nikos Batsios):
2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation - 3-4 October, London, UK:
2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation - 26th October (changed from the 23rd), Istanbul, Turkey:
1-day Core Agendashift workshop: Facilitating outcome-oriented change - 13-14 November, Berlin, Germany:
2-day Advanced Agendashift workshop: Coaching and Leading Continuous Transformation
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