Respond to Change or Die: An Educational Scrum Simulation for Distributed Teams

Scrum is best learned by doing, e.g. through simulation, as it is simple to understand but difficult to master. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we could not use the traditional face-to-face Scrum Lego simulation game, but had to utilize something workable in an online environment. In this paper we present an online Scrum simulation for distributed teams that was created in a multiplayer game "Don’t Starve Together" (DST) through iterative reflective work and analysis. We ran the simulation with 25 Scrum teams on four different courses with participants from eight universities located in three countries. We collected feedback from 244 participants by analysing 196 student learning diaries and 84 student evaluation surveys, and by running a retrospective with 19 industry participants. The participants’ feedback was highly positive. The main reported learning outcomes were communication, estimation, Scrum in practice, communication and collaboration with industrial Product Owners, Scrum events, work organisation, teamwork and prioritisation.