On Coloring Lego – Print your own
I thought about extending Lego Time Tracking to a kind of Agile story and task management. There you take the time estimated for the task and put that many bricks of the color assigned to the task away to a central location where it is clearly visible (area of stacked bricks). Everyone contributing to the task takes away the bricks he needs for tracking his work time done on this task. The count of bricks still available at the information radar visualizes the remaining estimated time needed for the task. If the bricks are used up and the task not done its obvious that the team overpromised on this task (also noticeable much earlier).
This is something XylonSextuswrote in the comments to the lifehacker post. I just recently discovered the comment.
I quickly came to the conclusion that the existing eight colors available (plus the ones on sale at the online lego shop) are by far not enough to cover the tasks for a whole iteration. When pondering it I came across the printing possibilities my friend Mattcher has available at his company.
So we did a quick prototype on printing onto lego bricks and here are the results:
I’m currently thinking about further uses of this idea besides puzzles, learning materials, additional time tracking/project management colors…
Regarding the additional colors: As you can print a color on both sides you can reuse the bricks for different task (one of the two colors).
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How did you print on the blocks?
With a plate printer (a large one that is used for printing ad-billboards and the like, 3m wide). But I ordered a small one in China:
Here is the link:
http://www.gateway.cn/english/FB3300.asp
Have fun,
Michael