Coin Game

Run the Coin Game agile simulation to show how smaller batch sizes deliver value to the customer faster. Rules, facilitation steps, debrief questions and variations.

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The Coin Game brings the first principle of the Agile Manifesto to life: satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of value. Teams race to find the fastest way to move coins down the value chain — and discover why large batches slow everyone down.

Learning goals

Continuous delivery and the cost of large batch sizes.

Time and format

About 15 minutes, in person or virtual.

What you need

3+ people and 20 coins.

How the game works

The goal of this game is to work out the fastest way to deliver value to the customer as a team. A coin is only “delivered” once everyone in the value chain has flipped it, so the team has to decide how to batch and hand off work — then prove it against the clock across several timed iterations.

The Coin Game rules

  • There is a set number of coins representing value to the customer.
  • Each coin needs to be flipped by each person along the value chain before it is given to the customer.
  • The process is timed to see how long it takes to deliver value to the customer.
  • There will be 3+ iterations that are timed.

How to facilitate

  1. Gather the team and explain the goal and the rules.
  2. Separate people into teams of five or six, each representing a different role.
  3. Give the team a minute to decide the fastest way to flip and stack the coins.
  4. Start the timer and run the iteration.
  5. Hold a one-minute retrospective so the team can rethink its approach.
  6. Re-run and record the time for each iteration.

Debrief questions

Run the debrief as a retrospective in TeamRetro so everyone can add their own perspective before you discuss as a group.

  • Which batch sizes did the best in terms of time? Why do you think that is?
  • Was there anything that surprised you in the game?
  • How do you think it would change if the distance between people were increased?
  • How do you think things would change if you had to wait 10 seconds each time there was a handover of coins?
  • If you introduced a change request during the game, how did that impact the process?
  • If you had compared it to the traditional waterfall approach, what differences did you notice?
  • How good were the team’s time estimates?
  • What else did you learn from this activity that you wanted to share?

Variations

  • Have the teams start by completing the task in a traditional waterfall approach, where every coin is flipped by one person before it is moved to the next person. This acts as a baseline.
  • Introduce one or more change requests to the process — for example, “I only want $2 coins” or “coins with a picture of an animal”.
  • Have teams estimate how long it would take to complete the task at different batch sizes.