3 Check-IN ACTIVITIES (Part II)

Click here for 3 Check-IN ACTIVITIES (Part I).

I’m continuing with Part II;

3 Check-In Activities / Energizers

1. Are you tired?
2. Word Search Puzzle https://www.education.com/worksheet-generator/reading/
3. Sorting by Birthdate

1. Are you TIRED?

Let’s do it together right now. Look at the picture below. If you see a lot of shaking and circular movement, it means you are tired. It could be work fatigue or mental fatigue. You may be under stress. To get motivated to read this post, and to be ready both in body and in mind, it’s good to shake it off a little. Especially these days, when we are practically shut in at home and in need of exercise.

You’ve looked at the picture, and while you’re saying “it’s moving” or “it’s not moving”, we can move on to the next step;

We put our hands on our shoulders and circle our elbows, a little forward and a little backward, for 1-2 minutes. This speeds up blood circulation and helps the body relax.

After doing the exercise, look at the first picture again.

• – The shaking in the picture has decreased, hasn’t it?
• – “Yes, it stopped”
• – “Nooo, it’s the same”

I can almost hear some of you saying these, and at that moment we realize the picture was actually just an excuse 🙂

Right before the Daily starts, when starting a new class, at the beginning of a presentation in front of an audience, or as the Check-in activity of a retrospective meeting, this can be a good warm-up and opening activity.

2. Word Search Puzzle

One of the most effective ways to learn and build motivation is, of course, gamification. In this activity we try to find a certain group of words in a scrambled grid of letters. By running it as a race between teams, in person or online, and measuring completion times, you can reinforce the topic while playing an enjoyable game. Great fun.

Below I’m leaving 2 examples, for “Agile Mindset” and “Scrum Framework”. Let’s see how fast you can finish them (Cycle Time). I’m not sharing the answers so as not to rob you of the pleasure of solving them 🙂

If you’d like to design word search games like these yourself, you can easily do so on the site below;

3. SORTING BY BIRTHDATE

Normally this is a simple, very commonly used check-in activity. Another version of it is “Lining up by height”.

The rules of the game are: You only have 2 minutes at the start for planning. After that, no talking, no writing, and you will sort yourselves by birthdate in chronological order. You will write it in the table below.

In this new era when we can’t be face to face, it’s a useful exercise that reminds us how these things aren’t so easy online, and that – just like adapting to the new normal – we need to develop new and different techniques.

In our first attempt with a volunteer group in our IE396 class at Özyeğin University, we got stuck for the first 5-10 seconds. Conversations went like this;

• – How is this going to work without talking?
• – And we’re not writing either…
• – We could show it with our hands, but day, month and year would get mixed up.
• – How am I supposed to show 25 with my hands?
• – (Me, to myself: Maybe we shouldn’t have done this, it’s not going to work, what a silly design, we’ve failed.)

But after a while, something happened;

• Interesting and creative suggestions came up that I had never heard before.
• Good suggestions were picked right away.
• Planning was done.
• One person took on the moderator role and gave the instructions.
• Participants arranged themselves by day, month and year just by “showing”.
• … and the result was a success.

Once again we saw that there is nothing a group of people focused on a specific goal cannot do.

Happy check-ins…

Erkan Sarıkaya

Enterprise Agile Coach

Related Posts

• 3 Check-in Activities (Part I)
• Agile Retrospectives
• The Wrong Way to do Agile: Retro

Author: Erkan Sarıkaya — Enterprise Agile Coach, founder of GONEX. He writes on enterprise agile transformation, Scrum and agile leadership coaching. You can learn more on the About Us page and read his other posts.