The silly season is over for another year and if you were fortunate enough to get a Nintendo Wii in your stocking then this article is for you. If you were like me then you probably played a bit of tennis or tenpin bowling to learn and adapt to the new Wii controller. The Wii controller is definitely an innovative and novel approach to more interactive game play. After a few more hours of Wii baseball you’ll be swinging the Wii controller around and hitting home runs like Babe Ruth in next to no time.

Eventually your inner geek takes over and you exit Wii sport and proceed with connecting your console to the Internet. It took a little while to configure the Wii for my wireless network at home, but I eventually got the Wii talking to my Airport Express. You need to configure your Airport Express so that it uses the first channel option, and not the default automatic setting, especially when you have set up a secure network. Most routers have multiple Channels, but the Wii is only capable of using the security key in the first channel. Eventually I got round to browsing Slashdot and reading my email in Gmail using the Opera web browser on the Wii.

The next thing I got working on the Wii was Mingle. I was inspired by the YouTube video of Agile 2007 where Studios was demonstrating Mingle on a Wii to the conference attendees. All I had to do was point the Wii’s Opera browser to an instance of Mingle running from my laptop on the local network, and lo and behold Mingle was right there on my Wii. I was amazed with how natural the Wii controller was with navigating Mingle. You can even grab a story card and move it around like you would with a real story wall. I guess the Studios guys and gals really weren’t using their Wii for playing games.

Having experienced how easy it is to install Mingle and get it running on a Wii, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Wii and data projector included in every Quick Start Kit in the near future. Imagine how many trees we would save from not having to use any more index cards!

Seriously though, it could be used as a tool for enticing client developers to attend and get involved with iteration planning sessions. It would also distinguish ThoughtWorks projects from other consultants’ projects on the client site. Imagine walking into a showcase with a Wii and data projector and running through the Mingle reports before showing the client what you have developed in the last iteration. You will just blow their minds.

In my opinion coupling Mingle with a Wii will give you the Purple Cow of Agile project management tools. Throwing Lara Bingle into the mix and you get: so what the bloody hell are you waiting for? Go out and try it!