donderdag 11 mei 2017

Agile voting

Of course you want consensus. But building consensus takes time, but sometimes consensus is hard to obtain. Sometimes you don’t have the time to talk on and on, or everybody is bored. Sometimes we need to vote.

Here is a one pager with ways to vote.

Three dots
Execution:
Give every participant 3 dots. These dots may be post-its, or coins, but are usually made with a highlighter
Every participant distributes his/her dots among the options: one for three different options, all three dots for one option, as the voter sees fit.
The option with most dots is chosen (or top 2, or top-3)
You can vary the number of dots as you see fit.

Fist of five
Every participant is asked to raise his/her fist in the air.
Vote leader mentions option and counts from 5 to 0. On 0, every participant raises 1 to 5 fingers simultaneously.
Participants raise 1 to 5 fingers.
Note number of votes and continue with next option.

Roman vote
Everybody votes at the same time in the way on an option in the way that the roman emperors decided on the fate of a defeated gladiator in the arena: thumb up or thumb down. Keep track of the number of thumbs up/down and choose after all options have been voted on.

Planningspoker
List all options.
Hand every participant as many cards from a set of planning poker cards as there are options. Thus, if there are 5 options, each participant gets the cards 0, ½, 1, 2 and 3.
Participants distribute their cards over the options, one card per option.
Item(s) with highest score(s) is(are) elected.

You can find references to the methods described above at the end of this post. Here are two new methods, which I intend to try out in the near future.

Put your money where your mouth is!
Prepare by making small bags with 1 x 50 cent, 2 x 20 cent and 1 x 10 cent
Hand one bag to each participant
Participants distribute their coins over the options, taking turns. Optionally, they may explain to their team mates why they vote as they do.
Option with most money is valued highest.

Race
Prepare a sheet with 4 lanes consisting of up to 12 squares each. Make one marker for every option, mark it with a short one word name.
Hand every participant the cards 0, 1, 2, 3, and 5 from a set of planning poker cards.
Participants take turns to move the markers to the finish by playing one of their cards and moving the marker the number of indicated squares.
Voting ends at the end of the round in which the first item crosses the finish line.
Two or more items may cross the finish in the same round, furthest option wins.

References:
http://www.innolution.com/resources/glossary/dot-voting - dot voting
http://agileforall.com/learning-with-fist-of-five-voting/ - fist of five
https://plans-for-retrospectives.com/en/?id=99 – planning poker voting
http://www.wall-skills.com – roman voting