Scrum Facilitators Community podcast

Serious Play - Nancy Beers

• Nancy Beers • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In the renewed Scrum Facilitators community podcast we talk about Scrum with practitioners in the community.

In this episode Jasper Alblas talks to Nancy Beers. Nancy is international speaker about play in business and gamification. She is owner of Happy Game Changer and is organizer of Play in Business to which you can win a ticket just by listening to this podcast!

Nancy is also Happy Scrum Master working with teams and organisations.

In this episode we talk about why it is important to incorporate playfulness in your daily life and your business. We talk about resistance and how to act as a facilitator to overcome challenges.

Do you want three tips how to start out with more play in business in your teams as a Scrum Master? Listen to this podcast!

Do you have a story to share? Or maybe a great Scrum question or dilemma you're currently struggling with? Get in touch with us at podcast@scrumfacilitators.com and feel free to reach out to any Scrum Facilitator if you want to join our slack community.

Links and resources:

Where you can meet me or see me speak IRL or online:

Are you working with Scrum/Agile and have similar stories and tips to share? Or do you know someone that you want to voluntell to be a guest? Reach out! podcast@scrumfacilitators.com

Also check out our website, LinkedIn and Meetup


Steve Trapps:

Welcome to the scrum facilitators community podcast, the place for real conversations around Scrum.

Jasper Alblas:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of Scrum facilitators community podcast. And today, we are here with Nancy beers. Nancy, welcome.

Nancy Beers:

Good morning. Really looking forward to this

Jasper Alblas:

Excellent. We're too because we're talking about one. a very interesting topic. Nancy, you're a Scrum Master, right, a Scrum Master, coach, and especially, and we're going to talk a lot about that interest in, in this topic series play, which we're going to hear a lot more about in in the upcoming half hour or so. But maybe first a little bit of an introduction from you. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about

Nancy Beers:

Sure. My name is Nancy. And I'm founder of the yourself? Happy Game changers, formerly known as the Happy Scrum Master, which is still online, by the way. And I'm still a Happy Scrum Master, absolutely. Yeah. Um, and my background I studied Konservatorium Business Informatics. So I'm a music teacher, and Business Informatics nerd at the same time. So that's a little bit about about my background. I'm also a big open source hippie, I love open sourcesoftware. And for the last eight years, I have been collecting business games, simulation games and serious games about all different kind of topics. Soft Skills, hard skills. So I have games about DevOps, GDPR, law, technical debt, and things like that, but also about soft skills like feedback, communication. And I use these games to learn and unlearn things within organizations and teams.

Jasper Alblas:

Very good introduction. Thank you. And so how friends describe you.

Nancy Beers:

Hmmm, playful. That might not be too big of a surprise. Fun loving, authentic, loud. I guess. Hopefully, honest and outgoing and fun to be around.

Jasper Alblas:

It sounds good to be a friend of Nancy beers.

Nancy Beers:

I try to be a good one.

Jasper Alblas:

And what do you love, because you're a scrum master. But also you do this series gaming, you collect these games, you probably use these in your daily work as well. What do you love most about your work? What aspects do you love most?

Nancy Beers:

As a Scrum Master?

Jasper Alblas:

Oh, yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

Nancy Beers:

Well, like I told you previously is that I love to be around hackers. And for me, a good Scrum Master is a good social engineer. Because I think, I'm in the Scrum Master guild now. And the Scrum Master guild is called WD40. Because we try to spray a little bit lubricants between processes every now and then. And I think what I love best about Scrum mastering is that I'm in between hard technical stuff and the human stuff. So a great Scrum Master, makes sure that well, basically that people interact in the best way possible. So that's what I like most about my job.

Jasper Alblas:

Well, actually, we are, of course, going to talk about serious gaming. And also there is a conference coming up. Maybe we should first talk a little bit about that before we continue, because it's going to be the first of July, if I remember correctly. Could you tell a little bit about that conference before we go on?

Nancy Beers:

Absolutely. The conference is called play in business. And the first edition was on the 30th of September last year, so not that long ago. And I wanted to organize an event where I wanted to go to myself because there are a lot of great great colleagues of mine out there who do amazing stuff with serious games and business games. So not only in IT or change management or agility, but there are also amazing games about diversity and inclusion. Altzheimers disease, so in healthcare, but also in businesses, but also about mental health. And there's so much out there, but there wasn't really an event about all those serious games out there. So I wanted to create an event where I wanted to go myself. So last year, I contacted all the amazing parties in, in the business, come and talk and tell me about your game at my event. And by that, I mean, physical games. So not online gaming, although we have some VR and cool stuff, as well. But most of them are physical games. Because I think play is the best tool to learn new things and to inspire people and to game based learning is such a powerful tool in any work situation.

Jasper Alblas:

I do have a question about that. But before we continue, we have a ticket that we can give away to one of our listeners, which is very cool. But it's not for free, right, you have to do something about that you have to listen to his podcast, actually, that's all you have to do. So every now and then we're going to do, because we're going to do a little game, right, we're going to do a little bit of gamification of this podcast. I don't know if I can call it like that. But anyway, we're going to drop some words, every now and then. And if you connect the words, you get a sentence, and that if you email that sentence, to us to podcast@scrumfacilitators.com, we will select one of you to to go to the conference play in business. And we are going to go on to announce that on Wednesday, the 15th of June. So people have a little bit of time to listen, and then to connect the dots. And then there you go. So the first word is: get. Alright, so that's the first word: get. Um, so let's get on into, well, a little bit more about series gaming, because you told about the conference and the physical games that are there. So why is it important that it's fysical, like the online and physical? Why is that physical aspect so important?

Nancy Beers:

Um, a large, big thing about play is that it connects people. And although we have become very handy in, in online settings, so we can do amazing stuff with Miro Mural and all the tools out there to actually look somebody in the eye and especially as a facilitator, or scrum facilitator, your case, when you play a game with a group of people, it will show you a lot of hidden information about that group. So I tend to call it it's like looking, putting a looking glass on a team. In a playful situation, or in a game setting, people will automatically show their primal behavior. So if someone is very competitive, they will show it; if someone likes to bend the rules a little bit, they will show it, If someone is allergic to that behavior, they will show it as well. So also, when you do one on one coaching you coach on the person and when you do team coaching you coach on the in between the people, so you count on the relationships, and a game is ultimate way to show and enlarge those relationships within a group of people. And that's easier in a physical setting than an online setting. Because you can see non nonverbal communication between people so and totally not against online facilitate the facilitation because I do that a lot. And there's a lot that you can do online. But when you are physically there you can you can have a way better sense of what's what's actually going on in the room.

Jasper Alblas:

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So the whole COVID period was pretty tough on on this whole industry or, the setting that you could have to to to do this.

Nancy Beers:

Well also had a lot of advantages. Like I never in the physical setting setting it was never possible for me to let 150 people work on one whiteboard. That is possible in an online setting. Also in an online setting, everybody is front row. So I'm not totally against online.

Jasper Alblas:

That's true. So you have to really look at the the advantages and disadvantages if you if you want to organize something like this. So how would you define Serious Gaming?

Nancy Beers:

There are two things that I like to make a distinction between gaming and playing. Because gaming is a fixed set of rules, and from the

Jasper Alblas:

So I have to say seious play and not serious gaming?

Nancy Beers:

Can be both, I can use both theorems. But to play game is the voluntary attempts to overcome unnecessary obstacles. And that's the what Bernard Suits says. And I think that's logical. But it has a fixed set of rules while when I think about a play and using playfulness to change behavior, which is interesting when you when you are a serious play facilitator. It can also be something like you have to stretch ganz with those big nets around them. So you notch people basically to throw throw their empty Red Bull cans in there. That's, that's more like playfulness or play serious play. So in that we don't have this distinction. But play to me is a way broader thing because it's also about theater making music. So at my event, there's also someone who uses improv theatre within change management. So play is way broader to me than just gamification or games.

Jasper Alblas:

We're up for the next word, which is, of course: serious. Serious. So what's your story? How did you get involved in it? Because I, I know it's an amazing story. How you got involved in this type of industry, you're in this gaming. In playfulness?

Nancy Beers:

Yeah, I've been an IT nerd for ages. Because when I was 13, I got a computer from my brother. And he says, Here's a computer, and this is Linux. And go ahead. That's where the open source thing comes from. So my brother had played a big role in it. The playfulness is something that comes from my father. He was a musician as well. So he played with this band on weddings and whatnot, parties. But also he placed playgrounds. So my dad made, like, for 30 years, he placed playgrounds all over the Netherlands. So children are still playing on his work. Unfortunately, he's not around anymore. But I told him that I want to start my own company. And he was like, Yes, of course, go for it. So I founded my company after his death on his birthday, as a tribute to him. And also, he never lost his playfulness. When he turned 70, we went to a roller coaster park together. So he never lost his inner child. And I think that goes into count for me. And since last December, I also asked my sister who has the same father to join me, and she's a nurse. And she's doing what I do. So adding playfulness, and gamification in healthcare industry. And I think that's amazing. And it's so cool that we have those same roots and that we are building on his work. So yeah, so playfulness is pretty. It's a pretty big part of our DNA of our DNA.

Jasper Alblas:

Big part of your DNA and also, so it's very broad. You can you apply it very broadly in all kinds of industries and environments and all that kind of stuff. So if if we look at this playfulness, and gaming in business, I think that's something that sometimes, you know, has a bit of tension around it, or people find it maybe a bit weird or uncommon, maybe it feels different. We have a different style in doing business, then when we're out playing with whatever hobbies we have or whatever things we do in our free time. So why do we need games in our business? What's the gain?

Nancy Beers:

Last year, I also did a course on Ludo didactics. So Ludo is the Latin word for play, and didactic says the English word for didactics. So I guess that makes sense. So how you can learn and unlearn things by the use of play. The thing is, it's a very, very natural thing to play for people. It's something that that the only mistake that we have been making for years and years and years is when we look at children They learn most by the use of play. And somehow when we turn 14, 15, 16, then we all have to get serious and do things like sending emails and making Excel sheets, or, I don't know, PowerPoint presentations...

Jasper Alblas:

...making podcasts...

Nancy Beers:

Making podcasts; while the if you look at the power of play and how play how powerful playfulness is, because it's so natural and primal to do to experience new things, as we learn about what is what it's what it can do to you, it's so much more easy to grasp all the information that's been throwing at you. So it doesn't, it doesn't add extra time, if you use it in a different setting. I have a nice example from my sister. In healthcare, there are a lot of protocols. And people who are nurses and need to know those protocols. And they have to go through through five of them each quarter or something. And usually what they do they put these people are usually take care of sick people, they put them in a room and they tell them this is the protocol. And now you know it. What my sister did, she gave everybody a blank sheet with nine squares on it and said, Okay, we're going to play protocol, bingo. So if you have read the protocol, write down nine words that are in that protocol. And then I'm going to go through the protocol. And if you have bingo, you win something. And by that, people read the protocol beforehand, they thought about it. By writing it down, they had to recollect from their memory what the protocol was all about handed, write it down, then listen to my sister to cross the words off. And then afterwards, she asked, okay, so who did it finish the bingo? And what words were on your sheet that I didn't talk about? And how come? This word was missing? Or why do you think this is important? So you have three different layers, about the same information? It doesn't cost any extra time. But it's way more the learning curve is way steeper. And people really ingrain this knowledge by by playafying it.

Jasper Alblas:

Good example, and very powerful. Next word, for

next word. It's:

with. All right, so there are a couple of things going through my mind right now. Because I have been in situations where I work with teams. And then for instance, we do a sprint retrospective, right. And I've once had a situation where one of the team members, we were walking to the room that we were having the retrospective in and he said to me, we're not going to do games again, are we? Right? So that sets the stage right? So or we're going to draw something like that. How do you deal with this kind of this kind of behavior where people are, you know, thinking, well, this is not for me, I don't I don't play games we have to work and this sort of resistance against that playfulness. What's your experience with that?

Nancy Beers:

This is actually the number two question I get asked most by facilitators. And from my experience, and for what I've heard, the problem is not in a group. I did a team coaching session, team coaching, education a while back, and the teacher there set, the team shows you what you've got to learn. 100% of the time, or maybe 99% of the time, the resistance within a group is in a facilitator. And that's one that you have to grasp a little bit before you really understand it. Because I never manage resistance. I don't experience resistance in a group of people. I could give you one example I 150 bankers at ABN AMRO, and within 10 minutes they were running around like princesses. And that was because I believed in every grain in my body that they were princesses. So it's a lot about guts, it's a lot about courage, which is also one of the scrum values, actually, it's a lot of authority to to be certain that you know what the gain is in the exercise that you have thought up. So when I use black stories, for instance, which are lateral thinking, riddles, or other things, I know why I use the serious game. And I truly believe that it has added value in my session. So I don't play games just for the fun of it. I play games, because I'm dead serious about them. And because of that, and it takes also experience of course, so you have to, you have to try it a lot. And do it a lot to come across that, that that resistance in yourself, Oh, my God, what are they going to think they, they are probably going to think that I'm crazy. Oh, this, there she is, again, with crazy stuff.

Jasper Alblas:

There's a lot of uncertainty I think in when I when I think back on that period, was, I think in the beginning of my my career as a scrum master. I was very uncertain about these things. And that's what I think that's the reason that I remember it as well, because there were a lot of, of course, a lot of good, good sessions with games and play that we had a lot of fun and a lot of gaining. But these things are just things that stuck. That gets stuck, because you're you're just insecure about what you're going to do and the experience that you have to build. I think that's a very good point. And another memory that's that just stuck with me is when we did a game with a company with the directors of that company. And we played with Lego. And we did a session with Lego and I just I can just still remember, the director of that company asking me for more Lego bricks. Yes. And it's just yeah, it's just so much fun to think back when that person was so serious, always so serious. And then to see that playfulness within that group and the and the outcome that that it has the experience that they have, that they also experienced what teams experience sometimes or what, what they sometimes do to teams, maybe in a sense, and to be able to have that conversation about that is of course, very, very powerful. So luckily, there are there are more, you know, I think more positive, positive, remember, more positive memories than negative. But this is something I think that people can run into, right when when you do stuff like this. So there needs to be courage. And you have to be just you have to believe in yourself and think about your goals, right? Think about why am I doing this? And I believe in in that this will work for this group of people.

Nancy Beers:

And with any session is preparation, preparation, preparation, always.

Jasper Alblas:

So you can deviate from it, right?

Nancy Beers:

Yep, absolutely.

Jasper Alblas:

That's also my experience. All right. Let me see. So

Nancy Beers:

do we do the extra word again?

Jasper Alblas:

Yeah, we do have a word. What's the word? The

word is:

serious. Yeah. I wanted to ask you a question about we already did talk about the conference a little bit. But what what can people expect when they when they visit play in business?

Nancy Beers:

One of the things that I like most about playing business that we have, PowerPoints are not allowed. So we have 25 speakers, and only our keynote speaker, who is Jitske Kramer, which I really, really am really excited about that because she's all about deep democracy. And that's very interesting material for any Agile Coach scrum master or change manager out there. She's the only one allowed to use PowerPoints and the rest of them are not allowed to use PowerPoints, which asks a lot from their creativity. And people can expect a lot of play. So it's a little bit of meta because what I'm preaching is the power of game play a game based learning. So I'm asking all of our speakers to gain base learn the stuff that they want to teach to other people.

Jasper Alblas:

practice what you preach, right,

Nancy Beers:

Practice what you preach, right. It's in a beautiful location with a lot of space outdoors, so there will be a lot of sessions outdoors as well. There will be retrospective live outdoor playing podcasts, and there will be a book release. Which translates playfulness works about playing in, in a business environment. So yes, a lot is going on and happening on all kinds of different stages. There's also a VR setup. There's a cyber security escape caravan, which is built by students to learn more about security awareness.

Jasper Alblas:

So there's your nerdiness going up there. Absolutely.

Nancy Beers:

Absolutely. As long as I'm stuff like this, yeah,

Jasper Alblas:

I'm looking forward to that, we'll be there as well. And people can can get to meet you as well. There. Right? And all the speakers 25 speakers, there's a lot of speakers. So do you have any tips for Scrum Masters listening, or maybe Product Owner of a team members that are thinking about this, using this type of type of work, to be able to to get certain results or to you know, look at teams, what are tips that you can give people that are starting out with this?

Nancy Beers:

Well, three major tips for any Scrum Master or people who work with a group. First off, start small, it doesn't have to be something big or outrageous, or, again, a business simulation game for two or three hours. A nice little example that I usually give, if you are in an online setting with an online team, ask people for two minutes to build a tower on their desk. And then use that tower. It connects a question to that, for instance, what does this tower tell you it tell you about? Tell us about you? So that's more of an introduction exercise, which you can also use in in a retrospective. What does this tower tell us about last increment, or last sprint or our team communication or so. And that's very easy. People are building on their desk, and then they have to associate with what they built. So that's a very easy little exercise that you can do at the start of any retro. Second one is there is a lot of information out there for Scrum Masters and other people coaches, for instance, go to the websites play 14, I will I will send you the link Jasper for the show notes. Yeah, play14.org. That's a playful community derived from play for Agile. And they have loads of games on their website that you can use as a facilitator as well. There's also the global play brigades. So there's a lot of a lot of playful formats out there free to use. Just be sure to give credits, I always try to give credits for any game that I use from someone else. Because that's just a nice and decent thing to do. You can also go to my website, and I have some games on my blog, which you can use, of course. But there's a lot out there.

Jasper Alblas:

Which is what's your website?

Nancy Beers:

Happygamechangers.com

Jasper Alblas:

Very good. Yeah, we'll also put that in the show notes. And maybe there are some other links that you can share with us after the show. And then we can put those in the show notes for people to go and have and take a look at.

Nancy Beers:

Can I get my third tip just to top it off?

Jasper Alblas:

Yes. Oh, yes. The third.

Nancy Beers:

Use playful formats to explain technical stuff to non technical people. Let me give you an example. Think about a game of Tetris. Everybody knows Tetris. Think about this field of Tetris. This Tetris game is a third of three quarters full. And then tell people that the black holes that are in between their fields, that is what technical depth is. So if you want to new, if you want to add new blocks, being New Tetris blocks being new features, you have to get rid of those lines in the game first, before you can add new features. This is the best possible way I've ever heard to explain technical depth to non technical people. I've also used train tracks on the table to explain API, things that we were building to explain to so use play for formats to explain technical issues to non technical people.

Jasper Alblas:

That is a very powerful tip for for a lot of people in in in the technical field because a lot of people are struggling with how do I explain technical stuff to non technical people? Right? Very useful. Thank you. So we're about to to close. Close up this this episode. So we still have

one word left, which is:

play, we're ending with the word play, of course we do. So you will already mentioned a couple of links to, that people can go to, and we'll put them in the show notes as well. But other also like books or articles that you're reading, or have read recently that are inspiring to you that people should be aware of.

Nancy Beers:

I'm currently working on a new talk, which will probably be presented at the Scrum Facilitators event at somewhere in November.

Jasper Alblas:

Yes, we're gonna do we want to do that.

Nancy Beers:

And that's a combination of When by Daniel Pink, most people know, autonomy, mastery, and purpose from Daniel Pink. And he has a newer book that's called when about timing. People's IQ is higher in the morning. So when you're facilitating a scrum team, maybe you should adjust your scrum events to, to the perfect timing of a person within a day. And that's combined with Deep Work by Cal Newport, which is amazing about what deep work means and why you need it, especially in software development or other things that you need your brain for. you can always find me on LinkedIn, just look up:

Jasper Alblas:

I love Daniel Pink, he sort of the basis at least, you know, Drive was one not one of the base base books Nancy Beers. And my last name is not that hard to remember. Most that got me into into Scrum and Agile and the world of people actually. I'm going to read the second book as well. Thank you. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes as well. So people can look at that. Well, you already told us like, where, because another question would be where where can we find you? Where can we meet you. Of course we can meet you in play in business. We're going to be able to see you on the Scrum Facilitators conference in November, which will be announced soon, sort of sneak peeks or already sneak peek. Other ways of connecting to you or finding where were you at, of the time. I will be presenting on a free conference on the 23rd or 24th of June. So in a couple of weeks, the online Scrum Masters Summit, which is organized by Esther Smit. Also very nice events. It's going on all week. And I will be presenting on that Thursday. I'm also organizing voluntarily, by the way agile open Holland. Which will be in September 17. of September. And we are some so yeah. And I will be at may contain hackers this summer hackers festival. So yeah, a lot of lot of things going on. We do also have the the the question from our previous guest that we would like to ask you, which was pretty powerful question if you asked me. And maybe you can think, you know, I hope you think thought about it a little bit. The question came from from Fredrik Wendt and he asked, What was the last time you were humbled? And by what?

Nancy Beers:

I gave it a little bit of thought, indeed. And what humbles me most is two weeks ago, I was keynote speaking in Croatia. Someone came up to me and told me, Nancy, you truly are an inspiration. And I do what I do, because I cannot do anything else. So that is that is it's sometimes it's feels easy, because I love what I do so much. And I still get blown away. When people tell me you're an inspiration. I think that's one of the greatest and most cherished compliments that I can get from anyone. So yeah, the last one was by Nicola at doors clock in Zagreb, Croatia, who told me, Nancy, you're an inspiration and that's Wow, that's still. Yeah, that's still gets me.

Jasper Alblas:

You sort of get speechless when I can imagine when someone comes up to you and says that, well, we hope you keep doing that. Keep bringing that inspiration. And maybe also with the question for our next guest. What What would you like to ask ourr next guest on the podcast?

Nancy Beers:

A question that I really, really like to ask to big groups because it has such amazing outcomes is: What did you want to become when you were a kid? And what happened to it?

Jasper Alblas:

I'm gonna give that one a thought as well. Very powerful question indeed. And also connects of course, to your younger self and your dreams and inspirations that you had when you were a little.

Nancy Beers:

I wanted to be a comedian, and I'm not that far off.

Jasper Alblas:

You came close. Very good. Nancy was great having you on the podcast. And maybe we can talk in the future again, and at least we'll meet in these in play in business and probably other events or conference. was very cool to have you and thank you very much.

Nancy Beers:

Thank you so much for having me. It was great fun.

Steve Trapps:

Thank you for listening to the scrum facilitators community podcast, the place for real conversations around Scrum. Do you have a story to share in this podcast? Get in touch with us at podcast@scrumfacilitators.com