Sharepoint analyst and solution specialist Michal Pisarek just wrote a great case study of how he used Cover Story to get people aligned around a shared vision. “A clear, compelling vision for SharePoint is a must if want to have the best chances of success. However simply asking a bunch of stakeholders the question “So […]
Object of Play Cover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on […]
Object of Play Organizations naturally look ahead to anticipate progress. But the past can be as informative as the future. When an organization undergoes systemic or cultural change, documenting its history becomes an important process. By collecting and visualizing the components of history, we necessarily discover, recognize, and appreciate what got us where we are today. We can see […]
VTS, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane. Object of Play This game asks players to envision and describe an ideal future in sequence using words and pictures. Storyboarding as a technique is so versatile that it can be used to show any topic, not just an ideal future. But it is particularly powerful as a visioning exercise […]
Looking for a job can be stressful. The many unknowns keep us guessing. Even when it’s updated, our resume or CV feels inadequate, incompletely representing who we are. Companies require them, but they’re often too sterile; we want to share in more dimensions the projects we’ve done, our skills and abilities and the little details […]
Gamestorming is an amazing way to improve the performance of teams. Unfortunately, Gamestorming doesn’t work too well when your team is distributed. In this guest post, written by Luke Hohmann (who also wrote the foreword to Gamestorming and his own nifty book, Innovation Games), Luke will describe some of the tools his company has created […]
Gamestorming makes vivid for me the culture in which I wish to live. It’s a culture which meets us where we are, which encourages us to stretch and grow, just a bit at a time, with every game we play. Each game has an object of play, and so we can feel safe that we […]
On May 4th we asked for your help: to share wisdom with students preparing to facilitate their first workshop. Your response flooded our inbox; it was reflective, generous, vulnerable and helpful. Thank you scrum masters, designers, authors, consultants, coaches, teachers, students and Gamestormers all over the globe. Common themes: Prepare to improvise Write your word-for-word […]
Any product change, project plan, change management initiative requires assessment of and approach to working with stakeholders, a term we use to describe anyone who can impact a decision. Stakeholders often slow or block change; in other cases, they bust obstacles and accelerate progress. To increase your likelihood of success, check out this activity from […]
Object of playThe Hero’s Journey Agenda is a unique and different way to lay out the agenda for a meeting or workshop that creates a sense of adventure and builds anticipation for the meeting. Number of playersOne, usually the facilitator, created live in front of a group. Duration: 10-15 minutes. How to playI am going […]
Object of Play Communicating clearly and effectively is a challenge when there is a lot to say to a lot of people. It can be tempting to try to explain “everything all at once” to an audience and fail in the process. In the Understanding Chain game, a group shifts from a content focus to […]
Object of Play What’s the difference between a business meeting and a conversation at a café? The World Café is a method for improving large-group discussion by borrowing concepts from the informal “café” conversations that we have all the time: round tables, cross pollinating ideas, and pursuing questions that matter. As a conversational process, the […]
Creativity and invention has long been seen as a “black box.” As business people, we don’t typically try to understand this process. We fully expect that when designers, inventors, and other creative people go into a room with a goal, they will come out with more or less creative discoveries and results. Although when we […]