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Affinity Map

Affinity mapping, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane. Object of Play Most of us are familiar with brainstorming—a method by which a group generates as many ideas around a topic as possible in a limited amount of time. Brainstorming works to get a high quantity of information on the table. But it begs the follow-up question of […]

Bring Your Own Dashboard

For more information Listen to Michael Schrage, research fellow with MIT Sloan School’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, describe the need for strategic KPIs, common pitfalls organizations encounter when grappling with new technologies and why co-creating dashboards in a workshop setting are fundamental to AI capability development. The game Read through your favorite Management publication […]

Navigate your market opportunities

Any innovation or technological invention can be applied to serve different types of customers. Understanding your set of market opportunities increases your chances of success: It not only allows you to focus on the most promising market, but also helps you to avoid a fatal lock-in. The Market Opportunity Navigator, developed by Dr. Sharon Tal […]

Code of Conduct

Object of Play This game has been designed to help set the right culture in a group of people and help build mutual trust. It will empower all participants to act upon the results of this game. Number of Players: Up to 30 Duration of Play: +/-30min How to Play You write down the words […]

Build The Checklist

Object of Play In all work of reasonable complexity, there is a moment-to-moment risk that equally important tasks will overwhelm the human mind. In knowledge work this may be doubly true, due to the intangible “fuzziness” of any particular task. For groups that are charting out how they will work one of the most practical and useful things […]

Origins of Games

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 […]

Gamestorming Cheat Sheet

The Gamestorming book lists more than 80 games.  I share a visual cheat sheet that I made in my own exploration of how the games fit together. You can say, I made a game of it.  First, at my Self Learners wiki, I listed out the games, with links to the Gamestorming wiki, and for […]

Post-Up

Post-up, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane. Object of Play The goal of this game is to generate ideas with silent sticky note writing. Number of Players: 1–50 Duration of Play: 10 minutes to 1 hour How to Play There are many ways to work with ideas using sticky notes. Generating ideas is the most basic play, […]

Card Sort

Object of Play Card sorting is a practice used frequently by information architects and designers to gather and structure inputs for a variety of purposes. In a common use of card sorting, information for a website is put onto the cards, and the sorting helps create categories for navigation and the overall architecture. The method works just […]

Elevator Pitch

Note: This approach is meant to be pretty flexible- other idea generating and prioritizing techniques may be substituted within the flow to suit the circumstances. Would like to hear how others approach this challenge. -James Object of Play: What has been a time-proven exercise in product development applies equally well in developing any  concept: writing […]