Agile Battleships

The same game three times, with nothing changed between them except how often you find out whether it is working.

Nobody plays round three better because they have become better at Battleships in the last quarter of an hour. The skill is identical, the board is no easier, and the ammunition has not changed. What changed is how long a wrong assumption was allowed to survive — thirty shots, then five, then one — and that alone is worth two or three times the score.

The board is eight squares by eight. Hidden on it are seven ships — one Carrier of five squares, one Battleship of four, one Cruiser of three, two Destroyers of two, and two Submarines of one — eighteen squares of ship in all. Every round gives you thirty shots and five minutes, and a fresh layout. Only the feedback changes.

Every game gets an eight-character board code. The code decides all three layouts, so giving it to someone else means they play exactly the boards you played.

There are two ways to play, and the choice is above the board. On your own, you take all three rounds at your own pace and finish with your own debrief; nothing is sent anywhere. In a session, somebody runs the game for a group: they start each round, everybody's five minutes runs together, and while a round is going the room shows how many shots each person has used and nothing else. No hits, no accuracy and no positions until the round is over — being able to watch somebody else's hits land is a feedback loop this exercise is supposed to be measuring, not providing.

Each round is a way of working, and the scores are the argument.

1. Round one — the plan

   Place all thirty shots before firing any of them. Change your mind as often as you like; click a placed shot to take it back. When you press Fire, every shot resolves at once and you find out how you did. Until then you are told nothing at all.

   This is the big-bang release. Everything is decided up front by people who are reasoning carefully and cannot yet be told they are wrong. The plan is not lazy — it is often the most thought-through artefact anyone produces all year. It is just built entirely out of assumptions, and it finds out whether they held on the day it ships, which is the last day anything can be done about it.

2. Round two — the salvo

   Fire in fives. After every fifth shot you are told how many of those five hit, and how many ships have gone down so far — never which square, and never which ship. You can steer, but only every fifth shot, and only by inference.

   This is the quarterly release. Feedback exists, but it arrives in batches and it arrives blurred. You are told that two of your last five shots hit, and you cannot tell which two, so you steer by inference and you carry your wrong ideas four shots further than you needed to. Most teams that describe themselves as agile are somewhere in this round.

3. Round three — continuous

   Every shot answers immediately. Hit or miss, on the square, and the fleet list crosses each ship off as it sinks. The round ends the moment the last ship goes down, usually with shots to spare.

   This is continuous delivery. Every decision answers immediately, so a bad assumption costs one shot rather than thirty. Nothing here is more clever than round one — it is the same person making the same kind of guess. The difference is that the guess is cheap, and being wrong stops being expensive enough to be worth avoiding.

The difference between the three rounds is not what you do. It is what comes back.

Here is round two in full — thirty shots, six reports, and nothing in between them. Every line is the entire message after that salvo: no squares, no ship names, no map.

1. Shots 1 to 5

   One of those five hit. No ships down. Somewhere in five squares there is one square of ship. You will not be told which, and you have to decide right now whether to spend the next five looking for it or leave it and sweep on.

2. Shots 6 to 10

   None of those five hit. No ships down. Either the area is empty or you searched it badly, and the report cannot tell the two apart. This is the shot where people start arguing with the game.

3. Shots 11 to 15

   Three of those five hit. One ship down. Something is there. A ship has sunk, so some of those three finished it — but not which ship, so you do not know whether you are standing next to a Submarine you have just cleared or half of a Carrier you have not.

4. Shots 16 to 20

   One of those five hit. One ship down. The count of sunk ships has not moved, so whatever you hit is still afloat. That is the most informative thing round two ever says, and it took five shots to say it.

5. Shots 21 to 25

   Two of those five hit. Two ships down.

6. Shots 26 to 30

   Out of shots. Now the board opens up and you see every ship, every hit and every miss at once — including the four shots you spent on a square you had already proved was empty, which you could not have known and which cost you nothing to make and everything to keep.