With years of building large-scale web apps, we’ve experienced almost everything that goes right and wrong during software development projects. So we created Milestone Mayhem, a card game that reflects the challenges and successes of app development.
Milestone Mayhem is a two-team card game that tells the story of software development projects. The game is simple and fun and short enough to encourage discussion about the cards and how they relate to your projects. Your team is competing against your opponent to successfully complete your development Milestone first.
How the Game is Played
Each turn represents a development sprint. On your turn, you play one card at a time. Each card represents either Momentum or Mayhem in your project. The Momentum cards are worth between 1 and 4 momentum points each, with a score of 20 points needed to finish your Milestone and win the game.
As in real life, a little Mayhem can be overcome, but too much Mayhem ruins productivity for that sprint. The first Mayhem card thus cancels out the previous Momentum card and its points, whereas a second Mayhem card on a single turn cancels all points for that turn. The idea is, if you try to put too much work into a sprint, you run the risk of too much Mayhem setting you back.
Your turn ends by either getting two Mayhem cards or when you choose to “bank” your Momentum points when you’ve completed sufficient objectives for that sprint. If you bank too soon, you might be settling for too little productivity and might not finish your project on time. So you’ll need to find the right balance between conservative and aggressive to finish your project before your opponent. Given all of the constraints and risks, you aim to maximize your team’s productivity to complete your project.
If neither team finishes their project before the deck of cards runs out, then both teams lose as they missed their Milestone!
The game contains a number of Mayhem monsters such as Scope Creep and Grim Repo. These cards reflect things that go wrong during projects. We find that every organization has their own Mayhem to overcome.
The momentum cards reflect doing things well during development projects. They’re arguably a bit less exciting than the Mayhem monsters and include things like proper training and leadership to collaborating across groups, but these cards reflect the little things that help make a project run smoothly!
Play Milestone Mayhem with your team
You can play Milestone Mayhem with your team or have SitePen lead a fun and constructive session on how to improve your org’s workflow and productivity. If you’re interested in a Milestone Mayhem Workshop that is sure to teach and reinforce best practices with an added dose of team building, let us know!