Say It, Don’t Say It

Two teams. A spinner picks one of the four values of the Agile Manifesto. One person on the team whose turn it is presses Start, and for thirty seconds their phone deals them words from that value’s pile — continuous integration, rollback, walking skeleton — which they describe to their team without saying the words on the card. Got it scores a point and deals the next; Pass deals the next and scores nothing. When the clock runs out the facilitator ends the turn, and only then does everybody see which words were got and which were passed.

The mechanics are Articulate!’s, and the debt is acknowledged on the Facilitating page. The name and every card are this site’s own. It is deliberately the lightest game here: nothing is written, nothing is disclosed, nothing anybody says is kept. It is the one a facilitator can run as a ten-minute opener before a retro.

The two packs

Thirty words a value, a hundred and twenty a pack — both public, so read them before you play if you like

The facilitator picks a pack in the lobby. Agile vocabulary is the point of the exercise: the words a team actually uses, and the ones it is worth hearing somebody try to explain. Plain words is everyday words for what each value is for — a handshake, a launch, a customer, a detour — easier to describe and a good first game for a team that has not played before.

In the vocabulary pack a card belongs to the value whose tension it is about, on either side of the “over”: Gantt chart sits under Responding to change because it is the plan the value is weighed against, and a describer who has to explain why fixed price belongs under customer collaboration has done the exercise. The plain pack keeps to the value side only, so a first game is spent describing what each value is for. Reading a pack first does not spoil the game — it is describing, not guessing what is on the list.

Agile vocabulary

The words a team actually uses. Harder, and the point of the exercise.

Plain words

Everyday words for what each value is for. Easier, and a good first game.

Everybody joins the room on their phone. The facilitator’s screen goes on the projector, or is simply the biggest screen in the room. When at least two players are in — four, two a side, is the least that makes a real game — the facilitator presses Split into teams and the room is shuffled into Team A and Team B — the seat list regroups, so people can see who they are with and move chairs if they want to. Then Start the game.

Every turn has the same five beats. The facilitator spins, and every screen watches the spinner land on one of the four values: that is this turn’s category. The next describer on the team whose turn it is sees “You’re up” and a Start button, and nothing is counting yet — that is the moment to put the phone where only you can see it. The describer presses Start: their phone shows the first word and two buttons, every screen shows the clock, and they talk while their team shouts. Got it scores and deals the next word; Pass deals the next and costs only the seconds. At zero the buttons go dead and the last word stays on the describer’s screen. The facilitator presses End turn — or End turn and award the last word, if the answer was in the air when the clock hit zero — and the turn’s words appear on every screen, the ones the team got and the ones that were passed. Then the other team’s turn. Spin.

A round is one turn each. After the last round the game is finished: the score is on every screen with the words by round, and a scoresheet can be downloaded. Five rounds is about ten minutes of clock plus the talking; the facilitator sets anything from one to ten in the lobby, and a turn of thirty, forty-five or sixty seconds. The facilitator never describes and never guesses. They spin, they end turns, they arbitrate, and they hold the link.

Round three of five. Team A spun Working software; Team B spun Responding to change. Here is what every screen showed once each turn was ended.

Look at what the team passed. Walking skeleton is a phrase most of Team A would nod at in a planning session, and the one person asked to explain it to them could not — which is a finding about the team, not about Priya, and it is the kind of thing that comes up over a coffee afterwards. Empiricism went the same way for Team B. The got words are the fun; the passed words are the point.

And Sunk cost was awarded at the buzzer: Sam had described it, somebody was shouting the answer as the clock hit zero, and the facilitator ruled it in. That is the one grace the game allows, and it is the facilitator’s press, not the describer’s.

What leaves the room

The scoresheet, and nothing else

Rooms are deleted 48 hours after the last thing anybody does in them, and nothing is stored anywhere else. When the facilitator finishes the game the score goes up on every screen with the words by round, and a scoresheet can be downloaded by anybody in the room. Closing the room is a second press afterwards, and it sends everybody home — so the gap between the two is the room’s chance to take the sheet away.

It carries what the room saw and nothing else: the score by round, every word got or passed, per team, and any adjustment the facilitator made. No timings per word, no record of who guessed, nothing anybody said. There is nothing else to carry. This is the whole of the format:

# Say It, Don’t Say It — K7M2XQ4B

Played 2026-09-21 · 5 rounds · 30-second turns

## Final score

| Team A | Team B |
|---|---|
| 14 | 12 |

Team A wins.

## Turn by turn

### Round 3

**Team A** — Priya described *Working software*: 4 got, 1 passed
- Got: Continuous integration, Rollback, Spike, Demo
- Passed: Walking skeleton

**Team B** — Sam described *Responding to change*: 3 got, 2 passed, 1 awarded at the buzzer
- Got: Velocity, Pivot, Timebox
- Passed: Cone of uncertainty, Empiricism
- Awarded: Sunk cost

## Adjustments

- Round 4: Team B −1

The adjustment at the bottom is the facilitator’s ±1, logged rather than hidden. There is no undo in the game: a point pressed by mistake is corrected by a press that says so, and the sheet shows both.