Unleash the Power of Play to Boost your Scrum!
Apply this Playbook, and all your events will be truly eventful!
In sports, coaches and trainers have a Playbook.
As a Scrum Master, I wanted one for Christmas!
I always had a creative and playful spirit. For me, Scrum is a catalyst for Creativity. I prefer to work with a good playbook than a fixed roadmap.
There are many books to read on Scrum.
But Scrum is a game that is to be played.
Why Play?
I regret to have come across so-called “Agile-in-name-only” companies that downright discourage any form of free, open, creative play. They were all about predictable delivery and productivity: more, better, faster. Naturally, they accomplished the exact opposite.
Agility requires an unhealthy dose of creativity to find simple, adaptive ways to engage in complex challenges. When playing, we get to be curious, focused, and absorbed. When we play, we learn.
A Warning to Managers!
Applying this Playbook will make your subordinates question your paradigm, spend time doing absurd things, and undermine rigid protocols. They’ll take control over the way of working, gain confidence, and have fun. If you think playtime is unproductive and you worry impatiently when people finally “get back to work”, then the playbook is not for you. Or, perhaps, all the more reason it is.
Those outcomes may be precisely what you are looking for.
The Science of Play
I’ve been diligently working on the Scrum Master Playbook for two years. It’s a fun and rewarding process. I learned a lot about the Brain Science behind playfulness and creativity. Playing is serious business, and we can trust the neuroscience on this. Did you know that playing:
- relieves stress,
- improves brain function,
- boosts energy,
- stimulates creativity,
- deepens connections with others,
- builds trust,
- channels conflict positively and constructively,
- heals emotional wounds,
- and increases happiness!
Playing together promotes transparency and bridges learning gaps. Playfulness is a state of mind where we experience being absorbed at the moment, a collective flow during which we are focused, curious, spontaneous, engaged, and open to learning.
I studied how to play as effectively and professionally as possible. That is why I partnered with Evelien Acun-Roos. She is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) and a certified trainer in ‘Training from the Back of the Room’ (TBR), which applies Flipped Classroom learning. Evelien knows all about the brain science behind training and learning.
We aimed for the Playbook to be endorsed by no other than Sharon Bowman
“The Scrum Master Playbook is a little gem 💎 of a book! Written in a fun, playful style (with lots of whimsical graphics), it engages you, the reader, from the first moment you open its pages. It demonstrates how to bring the elements of play, fun, curiosity, and learner engagement into your own Scrum teams and training programs. The authors invite you to “play” with dozens of practical, simple, interactive strategies that you can immediately use to engage your learners.”
“Training from the back of the Room” and “Using Brain Science to Make Training Stick!”
Besides TBR, we based our plays on Liberating Structures and Visual Thinking Routines by Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Empowerment-by-Play
We created this Playbook to make work more enjoyable and teams more effective. I am confident that it will have the same outcome for you!
By mastering the Scrum Master Playbook, you’ll unlock the true potential of yourself and your team. The impossible becomes possible.
Escape those mind-numbing conclaves and death-by-powerpoint by facilitating plays.
Here are some names of the 50 plays you will find in the Scrum Master Playbook:
- 1–2–4-All
- Autonomy Matrix
- Banana Boats
- Compass
- Data Hunt
- Evil Genie
- Glows and Grows
- Holy Grail
- Lenses
- Magic Wand
- Point of View Gun
- Story Dice
- Tiny Monsters
- Untold Stories
- What the Duck?!
Pre-order now!
After all that work (and play), Evelien and I are ready to send the limited special edition to print. Pre-ordering will get you a sweet discount.
We had fun creating this lovely, cheesy Christmas promotion video.
With special thanks to:
Harry Vleesch Dubois, Mathijs van Weerd, Vijay Slager, and Olaf Walther
For making this dream come true.
