Albert Rigo, seasoned consultant in the software business, combined his professional passion (Agile way-of-working) with his private hobby (board games). The result was Continuous Delivery – the game.
”I have always thought that gamification is a great way to teach things,” says Albert Rigo. ”Playing games gets different parts of the brain working and makes it easier to remember things. I have also made a few games previously that I’ve played with the children at home. That’s why a colleague – Christian Pendleton – and I came up with the idea that a game that can teach Continuous Delivery (CD) was a good idea.”
Albert Rigo, M.Sc., has been working in the software industry for fifteen years – everything from developer and software architect to team leader and Configuration Manager. He thinks that CD is interesting because it brings in agile thinking in software processes, since the values described by The Agile Manifesto are exactly what CD implements.
”I have always thought that automation is the key to effectivity; when you’re working with your computer, it’s the computer that should do all the boring, repetitive work. So CD is simply a modern way of working,” says Albert Rigo. ”But most important of all is that the people who actually make the change, i.e. the developers, have the opportunity to take responsibility for their change right the way through to the end user, and – hopefully – get feedback from him.”
Albert Rigo thought the most enjoyable part of making the game was designing the ‘Events’ cards – cards that represent reality’s impact on software development.
”These unexpected events can be anything from ”lack of time” to ”old test cases,” he says. ”These cards were fun to invent, and I had help from a number of colleagues.”
Albert Rigo hopes that The Agile Community can benefit from the game. He believes that it will be used mainly for training purposes to give an overview of the terms used in a CD-based delivery pipeline.
”But in fact the game is for everyone – not just for developers or project managers. It raises awareness of what CD stands for and what its benefits are. It can also be used as a team-building game.”
Continuous Delivery – the game released by Softhouse and available for purchase.