Making Agile and Scrum Tangible: Lessons from a Hands-On Training

If you’ve experimented with hands-on learning techniques or Scrum simulations, we’d love to hear about your experiences. How do you balance energy with structure? Let’s swap ideas! Here are the learnings from our little experiment.

In January, Rico Trevisan, an Agilar Agile coach, and I had the privilege of delivering an Agile and Scrum training to an inspiring group of young professionals at Ormit Talent Belgium. These freshly graduated talents are eager to make their mark in the professional world, but let’s face it – learning Scrum through slides and lectures can feel a bit abstract.

So, we set ourselves a challenge: How can we make this training more engaging, participative, and concrete? Luckily we could tap into Joke Vandemaele’s experience with Scrum simulation – a hands-on, interactive way to turn Agile theory into something they could see, touch, and experience.

For the last two hours of the day, when energy typically dips, we kicked things into high gear with a fun and fast-paced simulation. Here’s what we did:

• The task: Improve the design of candy packaging – something simple, creative, and hands-on.
• The materials: Scissors, glue, tape, paper, and anything else you’d find in a craft drawer.
• The structure: Two sprints, each spanning two simulated days, with a daily Scrum in between.
• Our roles: While we played the stakeholders or “clients,” dropping in with feedback and last-minute changes, we ensured the teams stayed aligned with Scrum principles and guided them through the process.

When we kicked off the first sprint, the teams were buzzing with energy. They dove straight into brainstorming, crafting, prototyping at lightning speed. Something was missing. In their excitement to create, many teams overlooked the importance of the process itself – pausing to reflect, updating the task board, and making sure everyone was aligned.

At one point, Rico and I stepped in and encouraged the teams to stop, take a breath, and reorganize their boards. That’s when the real learning began.

Here are the big lessons that stood out during the exercise:

1. It’s worth pausing to reflect and reprioritize: Stopping to review the task board helped the teams refocus their efforts, identify what was truly important, and avoid getting lost in the details.
2. It’s okay not to have the perfect product right away: Scrum is all about iteration – making small, incremental improvements rather than aiming for perfection on the first try. This realization gave the participants permission to experiment and learn as they went.
3. A fast feedback loop is essential: As the stakeholder, I provided quick and direct feedback throughout the sprints. This helped teams adjust their work in real time and ensured they were always moving in the right direction.
4. Every Scrum event has a purpose: From sprint planning to the daily Scrum, each event played a critical role in keeping the teams organized and aligned. The simulation helped participants understand how these events fit together to create a cohesive process.

One of the most interesting aspects of the simulation was the sheer level of energy it generated. The participants were so eager to dive into the work that it sometimes became a challenge to bring them back to the structure of Scrum.

In the future, Rico and I will look for ways to balance this enthusiasm with moments of reflection – ensuring the process stays as valuable as the product itself.

This session reminded us why we love teaching Agile and Scrum. Watching the participants transform from theoretical learners to hands-on practitioners – and seeing those lightbulb moments along the way – was incredibly rewarding.

To all the young professionals out there: remember, Scrum isn’t just about getting things done. It’s about doing things thoughtfully, embracing feedback, and continuously improving.

If you’ve experimented with hands-on learning techniques or Scrum simulations, we’d love to hear about your experiences. How do you balance energy with structure? Let’s swap ideas!