When in Doubt...Act It Out

I was recently working with a team on planning their first sprint on a new project. After a couple of very confusing hours talking about what the project even was about, I asked the team to create personas for their users on large sheets on the wall to help them visualize it, thinking it would help them break through the confusion. But, it didn't really work which really let me know how bad the problem was.
So, it was time to improvise...I had each of them take one of the user roles and write it on a post-it, then stick it to themselves. Then we just acted out the system functions with each person taking on one of the user roles and describing how they would use a feature and how they would be interacting with another user. It worked, it was fun, and it helped everyone get a clear view of the features and the user interactions.

Learn something new everyday! I will certainly be using this technique again. Give it a try.