Teaching students scrum using LEGO blocks

In this paper, we present a LEGO-based Scrum simulation game that we used twice with Master’s level students at Aalto University. The game was initially developed as an internal training tool in F-Secure Corporation, a Finnish security software company, to support their agile adoption. In the game, student teams learn the Scrum roles, events and concepts in practice by simulating several development Sprints, while incrementally planning and building a product of LEGO blocks. Student satisfaction was measured by a survey at the end of the course, and student learning evalu- ated by learning diaries. Our results show that the students were highly satisfied with the game, and that students with various degrees of experience with Scrum all learned a lot. In particular, students reported gaining insights about require- ments management and customer collaboration, effective teamwork, and the Scrum roles.