Gamestorming community, Gamestorming book website, Gamestorming wiki, Andrius's notes from Dave Gray's gamestorming webinar, Multiplying Experiences
What is Gamestorming?
See About Gamestorming and also the overview of the Gamestorming book at Amazon.
How do the various games fit together?
I list below the Gamestorming games, their goals, and links to the GoGamestorm website. I made a visual Gamestorming cheat sheet, click here for a larger image. I've laid out the games in a way that helps me see how they fit together. I see a process of transforming an existing solution into a new solution: Consent -> Care -> Understand -> Transform -> Innovate -> Validate -> Commit. I think that the climax is when we shift to a new perspective, for example, when we shift from features to benefit, from our answers to our audience's questions, from our processes to our activities' signficance to others, from what we want to say to what we want others to hear. Once we've made this shift, then we'll find an incremental way to innovate, we'll vet that and commit to it. But to prepare for that shift, we have to sift through the details and understand what we're involved in; and to do that wholeheartedly, we have to orient ourselves around our dreams and our concern for each other; and that depends on our voluntary participation. I imagine that this horizontal movement takes place at many scales, fractally, from the smallest tasks to the largest missions, and certain steps may be skipped over, or rushed over, especially for smaller projects. I've also arrayed the games vertically, along a spectrum, as to whether they help us make progress explicitly, fleshing out structures of knowledge, or make progress implicitly, building consensus around how we feel. I think if we pursue both, then our group's commitment is both intellectual and emotional. I conclude that I myself, in working with others, should focus more on the emotional side. Andrius Kulikauskas, 2011.02.03
Core Games
Games for Opening
Games for Exploring
- The 4Cs - gather and organize information
- The 5 Whys - discover the root cause
- Affinity Map discover patterns relating categories
- Atomize - unpack large, messy structures
- The Blind Side - acknowledge unknowns
- Build the Checklist - order tasks or rank tasks
- Business Model Canvas - rethink a business model
- Button - pay attention to everyone
- Campfire - learn from stories, share culture
- Challenge Cards - identify, address challenges, improve product
- Customer, Employee, Shareholder - imagine futures from several perspectives
- Design the Box - translate features into benefits
- Do, Redo & Undo - make mistakeproof
- Elevator Pitch sum up what is remarkable about your solution
- Five-Fingered Consensus - gauge extent of consensus
- Flip It - open up to opportunities (AK: balance fears with hopes)
- Force Field Analysis appreciate forces both for and against change (balance of emotions)
- Give-and-Take Matrix - map out actors' motivations, interactions (AK: community currency)
- Heart, Hand, Mind - appeal to a person holistically
- Help Me Understand - know what participants want to know
- Make a World - sketch a vision of a future state
- Mood Board - capture the feel of an idea
- Open Space network around active participants and their purposes
- Pain-Gain Map - understand a person's motivations and decisions
- The Pitch focus on feasibility and viability
- Product Pinnochio - improve the end user experience
- Post the Path - clarify the existing process
- RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Matrix - clarify responsibility, improve morale
- Red:Green Cards - honor feedback
- Speedboat - identify obstacles to a goal
- SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) - have and track a methodical discussion
- Staple Yourself to Something - clarify a process's impact on an object
- SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) Analysis gauge and shape possibilities of success
- Synesthesia - appreciate visceral, memorable aspects
- Talking Chips - include every voice equally
- Understanding Chain - unfold your knowledge from your audience's point of view
- Value Map get feedback on what features are important
- The Virtuous Cycle - shift focus from process to recurring value
- Visual Glossary - create a shared language
- Wizard of Oz - test the completeness of a design
- The World Cafe - recognize emergent patterns
Games for Closing
- $100 Test Assign relative value
- 20/20 Vision - agree how to rank initiatives
- Ethos, Logos, Pathos - identify weakness in presentation
- Graphic Gameplan - agree on executable action plan
- Impact & Effort Matrix Ground commitments
- Memory Wall - appreciate people, foster team
- NUF Test - reality check for ideas
- Plus/Delta - constructive feedback
- Prune the Future - survey potential for incremental change
- Start, Stop, Continue - reevaluate activities
- Who/What/When Matrix - make clear commitments
More
