Collective Wisdom from the Experts 55
Here is a simple game you can play to drive home the power of estimating and
feedback. Get three different empty jars of increasing size and fill them with
jelly beans. Record how many jelly beans it takes to fill up every jar.
Get together a group you are trying teach about estimating and ask members
to estimate the number of jelly beans in the smallest jar. When I teach this, I
have people work in pairs.
Give them only a short time to come up with an estimate and then have them
write it down. Collect the data by having each pair read its estimates aloud.
Write the estimates down on a whiteboard or flipchart. Do the same for the
second and third jars of jelly beans.
Finally, tell the group members that this is a good way to do estimating, thank
them for their input, and ask if there are any questions before you move on. It
never fails. Someone will ask how many jelly beans there actually are in each
jar. They want to know! Let them dangle a while and then tell them how silly
they are. After all, it’s just a jar of jelly beans.
Now you have them right where you want them. Ask them how many times
they’ve had the data to give feedback to their team on far more important top-
ics and they scoffed and dismissed it as unimportant. Overlooking feedback to
their teams will not happen again.