Team management: Manage your own teams of project members (assignments, training etc.).
Competitive cooperation: Compete for the project roles but cooperate to close the projects.
Conflicting objectives: Choose and work against the conflicting objectives of time, cost and quality.
Go/nogo meetings: Select projects and vote whether to continue them or to close and score them.
Educational: The game teaches project management in a game context
Annotated Games: Version 0.5, 4 players
This game was played during the game testing of Find the Bug! Project. The players pursued different
paths towards the victory.
Player 1: Form a team
Player 2: Get a senior lead quickly
Player 3: Get a senior trainer and train new members
Player 4: Combine recruit and to get a senior lead
Each round has a summary table of actions, current project members and current achievement.
Parentheses indicates busy and capital letters indicates senior.
The projects are coded with colors for risk (green=1, light green=2, yellow=3, orange=4, red=5),
numbers for remaining cubes (5/10=5 development cubes and 10 test cubes) and letters for budgets
(T=time, c=cost 4, Q=quality). Steering groups are coded with letters for priorities
(T=time, c=cost 4, Q=quality) and numbered circles for the players' seats.
Round 1
Player
Action
Project members Achievement
Player 1
Recruit developer
(Developer)
Player 2
Recruit developer
(Developer)
Player 3
Recruit tester
(Tester)
Player 4
Recruit recruiter
(Recruiter)
Player 1-3 start with "productive" project members, keeping all options open, while
player 4 goes all in on the recruiter strategy with an early recruiter.
Round 2
Player
Action
Project members Achievement
Player 1
Recruit tester
(Developer) (Tester)
Player 2
Recruit developer
(Developer) (Developer)
Player 3
Recruit trainer
(Tester) (Trainer)
Player 4
Report status
Recruiter
Player 1 and 2 stick to their flexible openings while player 3 commits to the trainer strategy
with an early trainer. Player 4 reports status to get to use her recruiter as soon as possible but may not place
any steering group disc since she has no achievement cubes (yet).
Round 3
Player
Action
Project members Achievement
Player 1
Report status
Developer Tester
Player 2
Recruit dev. lead
(Developer) (Developer) (Dev. lead)
Player 3
Report status
Tester Trainer
Player 4
Recruit 2 testers
(RECRUITER) (Tester) (Tester)
Player 1 reports status without placing any steering group disc. Player 2 goes all in on development by recruiting a development lead.
Player 3 also reports status without placing any steering group disc to get to use her trainer as soon as possible.
Player 4, seeing that there may be too many developers in the game, decides to recruit two testers.
Round 4
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Develop A3
(Developer) Tester
A3:C
Player 2
Report status
Developer Developer Dev. lead
Player 3
Train Tester
TESTER (TRAINER)
Player 4
Report status
RECRUITER Tester Tester
Player 1 is the first to assign a member to a project. She chooses the low risk project A3.
Player 2 reports status without placing any steering group disc but will be able to lead her two developers
next round and start accumulating achievement cubes. Player 3 uses her
trainer to train and keep idle her inachievementd tester. Player 4 reports status a second time without
placing any steering group disc. She's still focused on building her team first.
Round 5
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Test A3
(Developer) (Tester)
A3:C A3:Q
Player 2
Develop A3 Develop A3
(Developer) (Developer) (Dev. lead)
A3:C
A3:T
Player 3
TEST A3
(TESTER) (TRAINER)
A3:TQ
Player 4
Recruit TRAINER
(RECRUITER) Tester Tester (TRAINER)
Player 1 assigns a second project member, a tester, to project A3 and now has two achievement
project members. Player 2 uses her development lead to assign both her testers to project A3. The lead takes
1 achievement herself and also adds 1 to the cost budget instead of the test budget. Player 3 uses her
senior tester to take 2 test cubes at the cost of only adding 1 to the cost budget.
Player 4 keeps building up her project team by recruiting a senior trainer.
Round 6
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Report status
Developer Tester
A3:C A3:Q
Player 2
Report status
Developer Developer Dev. lead
A3:C
A3:T
Player 3
Recruit developer
(TESTER) (TRAINER) (Developer)
A3:TQ
Player 4
Report status
RECRUITER Tester Tester TRAINER
In the 6th round, all players except player 3 (who recruits a developer) report status. Player 1 and 2 may
also place the first steering group discs in the game since they now have achievement cubes. Player 1 adds
a seat to steering groups with low time priority and player 2 a seat to a steering group with
high cost priority. Player 4, who doesn't have any achievement yet, doesn't get to place any seats at steering
groups.
Round 7
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Develop A3
(Developer) Tester
A3:CC A3:Q
Player 2
Develop A3
Developer (Developer) Dev. lead
A3:C A3:C A3:T
Player 3
Recruit developer
(TESTER) (TRAINER) (Developer) (Developer)
A3:TQ
Player 4
Recruit TEST LEAD
(RECRUITER) Tester Tester TRAINER (TEST LEAD)
Player 1 and 2 completes the development of project A3 with 1 left of the time budget.
Meanwhile, player 3 recruits a second developer (with the idea of training them in one round with her
senior trainer) and player uses her senior recruiter to recruit a senior test lead.
Round 8
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Test A3
(Developer) (Tester)
A3:CC A3:QQ
Player 2
Train developer
(DEVELOPER) (Developer) Dev. lead
A3:C A3:C A3:T
Player 3
Report status
TESTER TRAINER Developer Developer
A3:TQ
Player 4
Train tester Train tester
(RECRUITER) TESTER TESTER (TRAINER) (TEST LEAD)
Player 1 tests project A3 and now has 2 cost cubes and 2 quality cubes from there. Player 2 starts building a
senior development team by training one of her developers. Player 3 reports status and places her first
steering group disc at a steering group with time and quality priorities.
Finally player 4 uses her senior trainer to train her two testers.
Round 9
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Report status
Developer Tester
A3:CC A3:QQ
Player 2
Train dev. lead
(DEVELOPER) (Developer) (DEV. LEAD)
A3:C A3:C A3:T
Player 3
Train developer Train developer
TESTER (TRAINER) DEVELOPER CONT. INT.
A3:TQ
Player 4
Report status
RECRUITER TESTER TESTER TRAINER TEST LEAD
Player 1 reports status and places a second disc at the same steering group. It's now only one disc away from
a go/nogo meeting. Player 2 and 3 both train project members. The former will soon have a senior
development team while the latter now has three senior project members. Player 4 has a senior test team
and now repors status, still without placing any steering group disc.
Round 10
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Player 1
Coach devops team
(Devops team)
A3:CCQQ
Player 2
Report status
DEVELOPER Developer DEV. LEAD
A3:C A3:C A3:T
Player 3
Develop A1 Develop A1
TESTER (TRAINER) (DEVELOPER) CONT. INT.
A3:TQ
A1:TT
Player 4
Test A1 Test A1 Test A1 Test A1
RECRUITER (TESTER) (TESTER) TRAINER (TEST LEAD)
A1:TQ A1:Q
A1:Q
Player 1 has enough achievement cubes on project members to form a devops team while player 2 reports status
to get his development lead team ready. Since she expects to have relatively more cost cubes than the other players,
she places a second steering group disc at a steering group with high cost priority.
Player 3 already has senior developers ready and
assigns one of them to project A1. Player 4 takes on her first project by assigning her senior test lead
and two testers to the same project.
Player 1 reports status and finally manages to fill a steering group. She chooses her only project, A3, and with only her
discs around it, the result is a go.
4 test cubes were removed from the project, 3 in the first row (box 1-3) and 2 in the second (box 1). For the
first row, a bug card with 2 bugs is drawn (box 2 and 3), and for the second row, bug cards with 4 and 3
bugs are drawn and the latter kept (box 2, 4 and 5). This means that 3 bugs remain untested,
giving a quality of 7. The quality budget is 6 (+1) and the cost and time budgets were met (+0 each). Adding
1 to time and cost thanks to the good quality, all cubes are worth 1 EP each.
The steering group multiplies time by 1, cost by 2 and quality by 3. This gives player 1 10 EP,
player 2 5 EP and player 3 4 EP. Finally, the adjacent projects A2 and B3 get a lower risk.
Player 2 delays the training of her junior developer to put her full development team on project A1,
anticipating it to get a go soon. Thanks to the now senior lead, one time achievement is replaced by a
quality achievement and one cost budget post is replaced by a time budget post. This leaves one cost budget post but no
development cubes so player 3 assigns her senior continuous integrator to project A2 instead. Player 4 realizes that her
senior test team may not have anything to test next round so instead of reporting status, she recruits a senior developer.
Round 12
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Evaluation
Player 1
Develop A2 Test A2 Test A2
(Devops team)
A3:CCQQ A2:TCQ
10
Player 2
Report status
DEVELOPER Developer DEV. LEAD
A3:C A1:T A3:C A1:C A3:T A1:Q
19
Player 3
Test A2 Test A2
(TESTER) (TRAINER) (DEVELOPER) (CONT. INT.)
A3:TQ A2:TQ
A1:TT A2:TQ
8
Player 4
Report status
RECRUITER TESTER TESTER TRAINER TEST LEAD DEVELOPER
A1:TQ A1:Q
A1:Q
14
Player 1 user her newly formed devops team to test and develop project A2, using up the last of the cost budget.
Player 2 reports status and fills a cost prioritizing steering group. She chooses project A1, which still is below the cost budget,
and with a majority of the seats the result is a go.
6 test cubes were removed from the project, four in the first row (box 1-4) and two in the second
(box 1-2). For the first row, a bug card with 2 bugs is drawn (box 2 and 3), and for the second row,
bug cards with 2 and 4 bugs are drawn and the former kept. This means that only 1 bug remains untested,
giving a quality of 9. The quality budget is five (+4), the cost budget was 1 less (+1) the and time budget was
met (+0). Adding 2 (half the quality) to time and cost thanks to the good quality,
quality cubes are worth 4 EP each, cost cubes 3 EP each and time cubes 2 EP each.
The steering group multiplies time by 1, cost by 4 and quality by 1. This gives player 2 14 EP,
player 3 4 EP and player 4 14 EP. The adjacent projects B1 and A2 get a lower risk, the latter the lowest possible
risk of 1.
Next, player 3 exceeds the project A2 cost budget to let her senior tester test. Player 4 reports status
and places her first steering group disc next to quality prioritizing steering group cards.
Round 13
Player
Action
Project members
Achievement
Evaluation
Player 1
Report status
Devops team
A3:CCQQ A2:TCQ
10
Player 2
Train developer
DEVELOPER (DEVELOPER) DEV. LEAD
A3:C A1:T A3:C A1:C A3:T A1:Q
19
Player 3
Report status
TESTER TRAINER DEVELOPER CONT. INT.
A3:TQ A2:TQ
A1:TT A2:TQ
8
Player 4
Develop B1 Develop B1
RECRUITER TESTER TESTER TRAINER TEST LEAD (DEVELOPER)
A1:TQ A1:Q
A1:Q B1:TT
14
Player 1 reports status to turn her devops team idle again. She places a steering group
disc next to time and quality prioritizing steering groups. Player 2 trains her developer and now has
a senior development team. Player 3 reports status and similar to player 1 she places a
steering group disc next to time and quality prioritizing steering groups. Player 4 lets her
senior developer start a new project, B1.
Player 1 assigns her devops team to project B1 while player 2 reports status to get to use
her senior development team as soon as possible. The steering group disc is placed next to
steering groups with low cost priority. Player 3 joins project B1 with her
with her senior developer, as does player 4 with her senior test team.
Player 1 notices that "her" project A2 would benefit from more development and
decides to let her project manager take a cost chit to get more budget for her devops team.
Player 2 starts project C1 with her senior development team and is joined by player 3's
continuous integrator. Player 4 reports status and tries to place her steering group disc so
that she'll be able to fill a time and quality prioritizing steering group and decide which
project to vote for next round before any other player. The end game is now approaching.
The game test was halted to test version 0.7 with modified and extended scoring.
P&P (PDF, A4)
P&P (PDF, US Letter)
Annotated games
Complete test games are presented under Annotated Games.