Skip to content
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Help
  • Careers
  • Contact
New Signature
  • About
      • Company

        New Signature has built a record of leadership by delivering exceptional technology and web solutions.

        View Company

      • Awards

        As a company, we are regularly recognized within the IT industry as well as the communities we serve.

        View All Awards
      • News

        Learn about the newest company announcements, technologies, and products at New Signature.

        View News

      • Partners

        New Signature works with a number of outstanding technology companies to deliver the best experiences to our customers.

        View Partners
      • Leadership

        New Signature's executive team includes proven leaders from the most innovative and fast-growing technology fields.

        View Leadership

      • Industries

        Our solutions are tailored to empower organizations across a wide range
        of industries.

        View Industry Experience
    Close
  • Solutions
      • Intelligent Enterprise
        Solutions

        Going Digital
        Unleash cloud capability, deliver change and compete at speed with a Microsoft digital operating model, enabling you to work more efficiently as you transform your IT environment. Learn More

      • Featured Solution

        Secure Cloud
        In a world of constant threat, ensuring that your underlying cloud platform is protected is the first step on your organization’s journey towards a secure, compliant operating environment. Learn More
      • Intelligent Workplace
        Solutions

      • Secure Workplace

        Work Anywhere

        Endpoint Health

        Identity Health

        Teamwork Support



        VIEW WORKPLACE SOLUTIONS
      • Intelligent Cloud
        Solutions

      • App Factory

        Azure Accelerator

        Azure Launchpad

        Azure Launchpad for DevOps

        Application Health

        Platform Health

        VIEW ClOUD SOLUTIONS
    Close
  • Services
      • Begin your journey towards becoming a digital business with NS:GO, our unique end-to-end framework based on the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework.

        NS:GO DIGITAL OPERATING MODEL
      • Intelligent Enterprise

      • Consulting

        We go beyond just technology to help your organization understand how digital can help you uniquely differentiate and better serve your employees and customers.

        VIEW ENTERPRISE SERVICES
      • Intelligent Workplace

        • Identity

          Identity is your new first-line-of-defense. It’s vital to your users and clients that your identity platform is properly configured and secured.

          Endpoint

          Whether your devices are on-premises or remote, personal or business-owned, we can ensure they are properly managed and protected.

          Teamwork

          Today’s workforce is collaborating than ever before.  We can empower your current teams with tomorrow’s progressive technologies.

          VIEW WORKPLACE SERVICES
        • Intelligent Cloud

          • Platform

            The cloud is no longer some future-state. It’s the here and now. Adopting a cloud-first platform is one of the best ways to maintain a future-proofed competitive advantage.

            Applications

            We build cloud-native apps and modernize legacy systems with the power of Azure to give your organization a competitive edge.

            Data

            We can help your organization create secure, scalable data platforms to deliver simpler and more sophisticated insights to your business.

            VIEW CLOUD SERVICES
        Close
      • Client Stories
          • Case Studies

            Browse a comprehensive list of companies who have created successful partnerships and experienced transformative solutions with New Signature.

            View All Case Studies

          • Featured Case Study TalkTalk Modern Workplace

            New Signature worked with TalkTalk to define a new Modern Workplace solution based on Microsoft 365, which kept the user firmly at the center of the transformation.
            View Case Study

          • Testimonials

            We love transforming our customers businesses, take a look at what they have to say about New Signature.

            View Testimonials

          • Featured Testimonial Davis Construction

            With New Signature’s help, Davis was able to take a progressive step forward by migrating their private branch exchange (PBX) phone system to a Voice of Internet Protocol (VoIP) system.
            View Testimonial

        Close
      • Explore
          • Guides & Ebooks

            Dive deeper into education with your team by leveraging our expert-developed guides and eBooks.

            View All Guides & Ebooks

          • Infographics

            Rich with statistics and information, our infographics are great tools for quick but insightful learning.

            View All Infographics
          • Podcast: Office Explorers

            Join Kat and Rob monthly as they chat with New Signature experts and explore the world of O365.

            Listen to Podcasts

          • Videos

            Visit our videos stream to access recorded webinars, service information and to learn more about us.

            WATCH ALL VIDEOS
          • Flyers

            Searching for information about our services? Our flyers are a great takeaway for all those details.

            VIEW ALL FLYERS

          • Featured Stream

            Learn more about the tooling and expertise required to unlock productivity and mobilize your teams.

            MODERN WORKPLACE
        Close
        Close
      Blog

      How to Escape a Vampire: An Agile Tale by 6 Project Managers

      New Signature / Blog / How to Escape a Vampire: An Agile Tale by 6 Project Managers
      January 15, 2019January 17, 2019| Ana Huertas
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • LinkedIn
      • Print

      Written by a team of New Signature project managers: Ana Huertas, Kobby Acquah, Louisa Morren, Edward Wong 

      Escape rooms are metaphors for work and life, and contain many lessons that can help in each. For the Applied Innovation PMO team, we approached it as a vivid illustration of the challenges we face in Agile Projects, as well as a great team building experience. Join us on our journey to learn something of ourselves by surviving a vengeful vampire Escape Room, Agile style.  

      As IT Project Managers/Scrum Masters at New Signature, we  

      • work on a variety of engagements related to intelligent cloud, modern workplace and Applied Innovation.   
      • enable multiple matrixed teams of highly skilled professionals; manage schedules, budgets, Risk and Action Item (RAID) Logs;  
      • monitor our quality and work hard to remove any blockers day in, day out.   
      • work collaboratively with our client teams so that once the first project experience with New Signature nears an end, the project objectives have been met and we can revel in closing it out feeling a sense of collective accomplishment.   
      • get it  done as a team, whether delivery happens in Waterfall, Agile or Hybrid. 

      Six of us–Ana, Daniel, Louisa, Kobby, Edward and Warren–recently went on a team building activity involving a vampire-themed escape room, coffin and all!  Yes, you read this correctly, coffin. We’ve decided to share our experiences from a project management perspective since at its core, we were a self-organizing team running a sprint.  If you are a Project Manager/Scrum Master reading this, all of what’s to follow will make perfect sense, in a very geeky PM/SM kind of way.   

      Starting with the Basics: 

      • Our Sprint Goal: To Escape (shortest goal ever!) 
      • Our Certified Scrum Master and Product Owner: our lifelines at the Escape Room venue. We will refer to them as Drac and Ulla to protect their identities  
      • Our Scrum team: The 6 cellphone-less PMs/CSMs don’t normally work together on a day-to-day basis, so it was a good proxy for a newly formed team coming together to tackle an endeavor.   
      • Our key constraint: time.  We had 1 hour, divided into 4 Rooms (Sprints) of 15 minutes or less.  We could iterate as much as we wanted but knew that at the 1 hour mark the jig was up. 

       Sprint Backlog: 

      • We had a brief 5-minute kick-off with Drac and Ulla.  Key to this activity were the probing questions to prepare us for what was to come, some of the ones we asked are below: 
      • Do you have high ceilings in there? Yes 
      • Any suggestions on strategy? Don’t get stuck and by stuck we mean 10-15 minutes without moving forward.  We allow teams to ask for up to 2 clues in order to make it into our record books if they get out  
      • Are you watching us? No, this means you need to push a button if you want a clue 
      • Our Backlog: we had one Epic (the story that Drac and Ulla shared with us before entering the room so we’d have context), quite fuzzy to be honest.  But then again, aren’t all epics that way?  In the Escape Room world, each room contributed clues (user stories) and keys for locks (acceptance criteria) to get us closer to “Done”.  
      • Our ground rule: Communicate.  We would all need to know what we were doing, seeing and finding. 

      The Project: 

      • In an Agile project, work is split up into pre-defined time durations called “sprints”. At the start of each sprint, the team selects, from a prioritized product backlog of work, what can be worked on during that time period. Then the team executes on the work. Once the duration expires, the sprint is complete, and whatever is not completed drops back into the product backlog for a future sprint. Finally, a Sprint Retrospective allows the team to learn from the sprint.
      • Room #1 (Sprint 1): 
      • (Sprint Planning) We decided to approach the first room in pairs and started putting everything we had gathered in one location (Product Backlog of Work).   
      • (Sprint Execution) We chatted about what could be required versus optional or a distraction.  We weren’t sure.  We found a lock and determined we needed to find a key to keep us moving forward. We had many great ideas, we time checked and decided to ask for clue #1.  
      • Drac came in and removed our blocker, we cracked the riddle and opened the first lock. (Sprint complete) 
      • Room #2 (Sprint 2): 
      • (Sprint Retrospective) We gathered and determined what we learned from the prior room.  
      • Do not destroying any clues in the process. 
      • Looking beyond the surface for issues or answers. In the Escape Room, we initially missed clues that required blacklight to reveal them. 
      • (Sprint Planning) The team got together and discussed how to tackle the current room.  
      •  (Sprint Execution) The skillsets and knowledge from each of the team members started lighting up the path forward, to name a few: 
      • Map reading and coordinates 
      • Knowledge of Braille 
      • Experience with a certain distinct type of lock 
      • We were time checking.  The team felt we were close to resolving the clues, so we held off on asking for a clue. 
      • We cracked the riddle, high fives all around.  The positive energy was tangible, and we were pumped to go to the next room. (Sprint complete) 
      • Room #3 (Sprint 3): 
      • (Sprint Retrospective) Once again, we gathered and determined what we learned in the previous room which would help us in the current room: 
      • Maintain the rule of thumb – 10 minutes and if no progress, ask for help 
      • Make sure everyone was busy looking for something that would help us keep moving. 
      • Task pickup and Owning it: whatever task you took on yourself, you owned it.  Don’t withdraw or disengage, be in the moment, think about how and what to contribute and feeding from each other 
      •  (Sprint Planning) This one was particularly hard.  The team took the lay of the room, and defined a plan to tackle.  
      • (Sprint Execution)  
      • We were looking for all the clues, discussing among us but we were struggling.  We time checked and made the decision to ask for clue #2.   
      • Ulla came in and removed our blocker.  Full disclaimer: we believe that clue #2 was half a clue.  We forgive you Ulla! 
      • We were brainstorming, and suddenly, one of our team members decoded the last clue and we found the solution which enabled us to open the third lock.  Yeah!  (Sprint complete) 
      • Room #4 (Sprint 4): 
      • (Sprint Retrospective) Lessons learned from the prior room: 
      • Perform frequent time checks throughout 
      • (Sprint Planning) Were we in the final room? Is this done? We had no way of knowing, we had 15 minutes left on the timer. 
      • We took all our user stories that were part of the sprint and gave it everything.   
      • (Sprint Execution) Everyone had a task to own: making sense of coordinates, mentally resolving riddles, observing for clues, etc.  We were communicating all over with what we were seeing, finding, making sense of it all.   
      • We had the final numbers and were working through the sequence in the lock. One of our team members was on the lock, putting in the numbers in all sequences were sharing. And Bham! Luck, lock opened!  Last Key, Acceptance Criteria met and sign-off completed.  Did we break a record? We were 5 minutes shy.  (Sprint complete) 

      With each room (sprint) lasting just under 15 minutes, the team successfully completed the tasks (sprint backlog) in each room (sprint), learning from each (retrospective) and escaped each room (sprint goal) successfully. 

      A few take-aways as we went back to our work lives: 

      • Scheduling and timing are important. Keep your eyes ahead to upcoming challenges so that you can manage your time today. 
      • Taking stock of what you have is important. At the start of each Room (Sprint), asking the questions “What have we got?”, “What is our goal?”, “Who needs to do what?” are important questions to ask, both in work and in life. 
      • Have fun! To maintain our sanity, humor, teamwork and collaboration were important attributes to have, both in Escape Rooms and work. 

       

       

      Categories
      Tips and Tricks
      Contact New Signature

      Events

      Thu 28

      Power Platform Series: Drive Organizational Productivity with Power Virtual Agents

      January 28 @ 10:00 am - 10:45 am EST
      Feb 16

      Cognizant’s Experience Lab for Continuous Testing with Azure

      February 16 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST

      View More

      New Signature
      New Signature HQ
      901 K Street NW, Suite 450
      Washington, DC 20001
      Phone: 202-452-5923
      New Signature Canada HQ
      7th Floor, 5140 Yonge Street
      Toronto, ON M2N 7J8
      Phone: 416-971-4267
      New Signature UK HQ
      57 Bermondsey Street
      London SE1 3XJ
      Phone: +44 (0) 845-402-1752

      About

      • Company
      • Awards
      • News
      • Leadership
      • Partners
      • Industries

      Solutions

      • Intelligent Enterprise Solutions
      • Intelligent Workplace Solutions
      • Intelligent Cloud Solutions

      Services

      • GO
      • Intelligent Enterprise
      • Intelligent Workplace
      • Intelligent Cloud

      Client Stories

      • Client Stories
      • Testimonials

      Explore

      • Guides & Ebooks
      • Podcasts
      • Flyers
      • Infographics
      • Videos
      Copyright © 2021 New Signature
      • Blog
      • Events
      • Careers
      • Help
      • Anti Slavery
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
      • About
        • Company
        • Awards
        • News
        • Leadership
        • Partners
        • Industries
      • Services
        • GO
        • Intelligent Enterprise
        • Intelligent Workplace
        • Intelligent Cloud
      • Client Stories
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
      • Technologies
      • Explore
        • Guides & Ebooks
        • Infographics
        • Podcast: Office Explorers
        • Videos
        • Flyers
      • Blog
      • Events
      • Careers
      • Contact
      • Search
      Cookie Settings
      New Signature uses "Required Cookies" to run our website, "Functional Cookies" used by third parties to personalise marketing, including social media features.

      Change your preferences by clicking the “Cookie Settings” link at the bottom of every page. Learn more about cookies in our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy. By clicking the “Accept Cookies” button below, you consent to our use of cookies.

      Please note that “Required Cookies” will be set regardless of your consent.
      Cookie SettingsAccept Cookies
      Privacy & Cookies Policy
      Performance

      Performance Cookies provide Content Delivery Network assets that deliver faster site content delivery capabilities.

      Required

      These cookies are required mainly in order to deliver Multilanguage site capabilities.

      Functional

      Functional Cookies allow us to provided advanced media capabilities including videos, surveys and other multimedia capabilities.

      Disabling Functional cookies will block the playing of videos and other multimedia site components.

      Targeting

      Targeting Cookies are used to capture user information in order for New Signature to deliver better user experiences.

      Save & Accept