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SessionSix002

Software Development - The Board Game
FionaCharles and MichaelBolton

You’re a software developer. Pressured by customers, your management has committed to an impossible release deadline, and the sales people have sold new licenses for the product with features that don’t yet exist. Your stock options could make you a millionaire if the company does well. But will it? Can you and your team win by skill alone?

Or maybe you’re the CEO, struggling to keep the company afloat. The new product will determine the company’s fate, but the project is woefully behind schedule and the quality is doubtful. Success will depend on product quality and beating the competition to market. Will your development team pull off a heroic coup and save the company, or will they turn out a product that’s full of bugs? What can you do to assure they succeed?

Playing the Software Development Game will involve role-playing, teamwork, competition, and life-like interactions between skill and luck. It’s intended to be an entertaining way to experience the effects of general systems thinking, as we play through positive or negative feedback loops, and attempt interventions.

After we play, we’ll debrief and share our experiences and learnings.

ProgramScheduleAndSessions2006