Magic Maze or “About siloes” (#2)
Corrado De Sanctis
To help People, Teams and Organisations in their agile journey. // ICAgile coach, SAFe SPC, Certified Scrum Master CSM, Kanban Management Professional KMP, Atlassian Certified Professional
If you are working in a siloed team or in a siloed organisation you can use Magic Maze to expose some common antipatterns and let players test how structure of the organisation, team composition and and people mindset can influence the work.
The Game
Magic Maze ?is a?cooperative real time?(i.e. not turn based) game where all players are working together to control a team, composed by Elf, Warrior, Dwarf and Mage (coloured pawns). Purpose of the team is stealing objects in a mall (??) and escape.
The game is really fast paced and applies a very interesting idea to disconnect the players from the characters on the board, making the game really well scalable.
Components are very simple and of good quality.
Here the link where you can find the rules of the game (link ).
Note. There are many discussions on BGG on how to use the vortex. Personally, I really prefer the version of the “wormhole” where you enter in a vortex, of the same colour of te pawn, to exit in another vortex, elsewhere, of the same colour. However the game has been originally designed differently. The original vortex is simpler to use than the wormhole. In the serious version of the game this is not really important which version you are using, this is part of the fun.
Hacking the original game
I have modified this game to?expose some antipatterns in organisation and team structure, and also in how people?defend their unique and specific role?within their teams.
During the game you will play essentially the same basic scenario of the original game (presented in rule book as “Scenario 1”), but with some variations that mimic typical “silos”. You can deal with these scenarios and you can compare with the best situation (played in the first round) and with your real life.
The game is designed for a?team of 9 persons: 8 player and an observer.
The observer has an important role because this is a really fast paced game and the team has not enough time to also monitor what is happening. The observer must
Note. You can play with fewer players (rules described here as easy to adapt), however more players more fun (and more learning).
You don’t need extra material, so everything is in the box.
Some tweaks to the original rules must be applied:
Note: Keep in mind each player can perform only?7 actions: 4 Directions (arrows), New Room (lens), Up/Down (stairs), Jump (vortex).
We are using what is described as?scenario 1?in the rules, so you need the?room tiles 1–9: we want to challenge players in the same situations tweaking behaviours and enhance differences.
All rounds will use the same set of room tiles, starting from tile 1a.
Structure of the session
The session is structured in different cases/rounds (we cannot use here the word “scenario”), when the team play the game. Each round lasts 10/15 minutes and will have some debrief/discussion at the end.
Add some time for a final wrap up on how you can apply learning from the game in real job.
Here you can find the description of many different cases in an ideal order; as a facilitator you can decide how to organise your session. My only tip is to keep the order listed here because this is also related to their complexity. Clearly you can decide to skip some cases.
Keep in mind 4 rounds with discussion can last up to 1 hour.
Different cases to play with
Each round has a title that introduce the situation we want to explore.
My suggestion is not to mention that title before playing the round, eventually make a question like “What kind of situation we have found here?” during the debrief.Below each case has its own description where,?in italic, I have highlighted the differences form the previous one.
1: The Cross Functional Team
All players can perform any action except Jump.
Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots.
Players can talk during the game.
Vortex are not working.
Actions cards not required.
2: The Siloed Organisation
All players can perform any action except Jump?but must act on a sigle room tile assigned with round-robin before starting the round.
Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots.
Players can talk during the game.
Vortex are not working.
Actions cards not required.
3: The Peer Collaboration
All players can perform any action except Jump,?however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act with another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play.
Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots.
Players can talk during the game.
Vortexes are not working.
Actions cards and sand timer not required.
4:?The?Dispersed Remote Team
All players can perform any action except Jump, however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act on another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are not working.
Actions cards not required.
5: The Multiskilled Team
All players can perform any action (also Jump), however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act on another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are now working.
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Actions cards not required.
6: The Siloed team (Scenario 1)
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are working.
7: The Partner Team (Scenario 3~)
Players receive action cards as per the original game?but these are hidden (each player can see its own only).
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
When sand timer switches it is paused, actions card are reshuffled and re-distributed to players, after that the sand timer restarts.
Vortexes are working.
8: The Planned Work (Scenario 8)
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are working.
The next room tile is visible on top of the pile (pile room tiles face up).
9: The Switching Priorities (Scenario 11)
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
When the sand timer switches, it is paused, two of the placed tiles (without pawns) are removed and two new are taken from the pile (hidden).
Vortexes are working.
10: The P-Managed team (Scenario 9)
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk at all,?ONLY the Observer can control the sand timer ,
consuming any of the sand time spaces in the visible rooms. Only Observer can talk.
Vortexes are working.
11: The Unique Expertise (Scenario 4~)
Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 13,14,21. The Orange walls can be passed
only by dwarf (orange).
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are working.
12: The Blocked Work (Scenario 6)
Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 16,18,19. No new tiles can be showed till all cameras will be destroyed by the Warrior (Yellow).
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are working.
Note: you can integrate also?11th?case or consider the orange wall as common wall.
13: The Unblocking Swarming (Scenario 6~)
Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 16,18,19. No new tiles can be showed till all cameras will be blocked?by any player.
Players receive action cards as per the original game.
Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game.
Vortexes are working.
Note: you can integrate?11th?case or consider the orange wall as common wall.
A possible future evolution of the game is to create dedicated action cards for 12 players scenario. Ideally each of the cards has 2 possible actions and opens the opportunity to use 12 room tiles to increase possibilities; just need to check how 12 people can play in a so limited area.
But this can teach something about large agile teams…
Waiting for your feedback on this to proceed.
This is the second article after the?intro? of this serie on “Using common boardgames to coach agile teams”. Stay tuned for the next articles ideally every week. In the meantime feedback is very welcome, you have many channels to contact me (respond here, Twitter, LinkedIN, AGF website among all). Please use these channels also to share your ideas and experiences.
Originally published on?Agile Game Factory .
"To help people, teams and organisations in their agile journey”
Corrado De Sanctis ?is Senior Agile Coach in Lloyds Bank and has been involved in some of the largest enterprise transformations at international level and in different industries during the recent years. Corrado is a known member of the Agile community in London; he is speaker on Agile topics and he is the convener for “Lean, Agile Delivery and Coaching Network ” and “Digital Transformation in London” meetup groups (~4500 members) . He is also founder of SAM,?Scrum Agile Milano , meetup group directly supported by Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance.
Corrado strongly believes in experienced learning and he is creator, facilitator and player of agile serious games. His games and experiences are available at the?AgileGameFactory website .
DISCLAIMER. Notes presented here are personal and cannot be related in any way to any of my employers.