A while back I got the idea to create simple conversation cards. Each card represents an agile practice, a conversation topic or an abstract theory. Now I’ve drawn 96 cards. I simply couldn’t stop 🙂
When I started I didn’t really know when or how I wanted to use them. But while drawing them, and while showing them to others, a couple of ideas popped up. The last couple of weeks I’ve found great use of them in several different situations. Here are some examples of how they could be used…
- Topics for lean coffee – Shuffle the deck. Give each person 3 cards of which they choose one. Dot vote. Run lean coffee with those topics.
- 1:1 Conversation starters – Before the 1:1, draw five cards each. Each person selects two. Discuss these topics during the next 1:1.
- Organizational Review – Pre-select 30 cards. For each card, grade how knowledgeable you are about the topic (y-axis), and if you are doing it “right”, “wrong” or not at all (y-axis). Then discuss what to you wish to improve.
- Lunch’n’Learn – Draw five cards. Someone volunteers do a short lunch seminar on one of the topics for the following week. Repeat.
The cards come in three different flavours:
- Practices, techniques and tools – Green
- Topics for discussions – Blue
- Abstract models and theories – Red
There are a lot of overlaps between the colors, but that is unavoidable I guess. Whether you care about the colors or not, is totally up to you depending on how you want to use the cards.
As I already mention, there are 96 topic cards (when this blog was written). The deck also contains a couple of suggestions on how to use them for discussions or in retrospectives (blue cards), and a couple of self-reflective questions (beige cards).
FAQ
Q: Can I use the illustrations for my blog/training/book?
A: Feel free to use one ore two illustrations for free as long as you offer du credit (my name and a link to this blog). If you want to use more than a few illustrations, I default to saying no since my drawings are part of my personal brand. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Would you like your own deck? Easy!
Start with downloading the pdf HERE.
You might need this FONT and this FONT for the cards to look like the image above.
Then,
Please let me know in the comments below if you ended up using the Agile Topics cards, and how you used them.
As I draw more cards, I will update the pdf.
Have fun!
Update: 2015-10-12, Added 6 more cards. Total 102 topics.
Update: 2015-10-17, Added 6 more cards. Total 108 topics.
Update: 2015-10-22, Added 6 more cards. Total 114 topics.
Update: 2015-10-26, Added 6 more cards. Total 120 topics.
Update: 2015-11-06, Added 6 more cards. Total 126 topics.
Update: 2015-11-24, Added 6 more cards. Total 132 topics.
Update: 2016-01-02, Added 6 more cards. Total 138 topics.
Update: 2016-01-18, Added 6 more cards. Total 144 topics.
Update: 2016-02-11, Added 6 more cards. Total 150 topics.
Update: 2016-02-16, Fixed spelling error. Added card numbers.
Update: 2016-03-22, Added 6 more cards. Total 156 topics.
Update: 2016-12-03, Added 12 more cards. Total 168 topics.