Teaching university students Kanban with a collaborative board game

Kanban is a workflow management method especially suitable for managing continuous software engineering work. We attempted to teach Kanban and lean thinking in a software project management course in Aalto University with a collaborative Kanban board game. Our goal was to measure if the learning goals of the class were reached and to study the student's perceptions of the game. Data was collected from two subsequent classes in 2014 and 2015. Quantitative data was collected with questionnaires and analysed descriptively and statistically. Qualitative data was collected from 57 learning diaries. The students perceived they had learned substantially from the game. They also evaluated the game very positively. However, the qualitative results and the measured learning indicated that the learning goals were only partially reached. The enjoyable game experience did not fully translate into effective learning.