Why this book?
I picked up this book by accident. I’ve been looking for books for my bachelor thesis (about an unrelated topic) and GameStorming caught my eye. I browsed through and realised, that I just found a gold mine. It is a book about games. Games, that can be used to create, innovate, resolve difficult discussions or make decisions. It „wowed“ me by just how many techniques (games) were in there that embraced team cooperation. Very well described, with a set of rules and description on how to play. In a week's time from that day, there was a community birth giving taking place and this was just the book to help me prepare as best I could, and hopefully lead my team to winning. (At the time of writing I do not know if we did win, but we successfully presented our solution and I would like to explain here what I used from this book and how it went.) Also, I love gamification of anything, it is just more fun.
My notes and use of knowledge
Is it a game or are you just playing?
First things first. What is a game? I realised, that games, can be created about any topic and with any goals. As long as your game has a set of rules and clear boundaries it is a game and can be played. When you are just playing you have no structure and no objective, that is the difference. For example, if you needed to specify a target customer of your product and just thought about who it could be, maybe list a few characteristics, you’d be „just playing“. But if you gave your process rules, for example: Draw a head, around it these categories - What he hears, says, sees, thinks, feels… And then methodically fill those categories up with your assumptions to clearly define your audience, you just created a game. Btw this game is called Empathy Map. Games can be repeated and used in different teams and situations, they give the creative process some structure and focus it in a desired direction, when played correctly.
To be more structured, for something to be called a game it should contain these components
Game space - rules of ordinary life are suspended and replaced with the rules of the game. People are not forced to play but those who do have to agree to a set of rules and abide by them.
Boundaries - games have boundaries in time and space. They can be paused or ended.
Rules for interaction - rules are defined beforehand.
Artefacts - usually there are some physical objects, that are used. For example to contain information.
Goal - you have to know, when the game is over - what is the objective
You gotta get used to drawing…
I was always terrible at drawing anything, when I portray people I have to use a stickman, and not even attempt drawing any hands. But what I realised from the book and the consequent usage of its principles and games is that visualising your thoughts, ideas, problems or challenges has many advantages, than just writing them up - especially in a team setting. When I started drawing, it unlocked what I can describe as childhood creativity and it helped me to look at the problem from more diverse angles. Also what I discovered is that drawing is a great innovative tool to get most people from their comfort zone and push them to think outside the box. I even noticed, that drawing in silence, showing your solution to the team without explanation and letting others figure it out for themselves and only after that offering your intended point of view can lead to extraordinary results, because you double the amount of possible interpretations of your drawing - leading to more original ideas in the divergent phase of your games.
One more tip. Use your whiteboards frequently!
The Gamestorming process
All games are created and played on the same principle. You imagine the world, where players will explore any possibilities and ideas. You then create that world, you give it temporal boundaries - its beginning, its end and its edges. Open your world to the players, they have to agree and understand its rules if they want to play. At this stage you Explore the world, goals you set are moving you and creating a necessary tension between the initial conditions and the desired outcome, players interact with the game's world and try to progress and achieve given goals. In the end, you Close the world when the game's goals have been met. The point of the game is not really the game or the end of the game itself, but rather the playing of the game and all the insights that come from the exploration of its imaginary world.
As the book says: „Games, same as good movies, unfold in three acts.“ Those acts are stages that players go through when playing. Opening (divergent) - exploring (emergent) - closing (convergent). I practised this process when I modified the Sprint methodology to suit our birthgiving quick format. When replacing some techniques used in the original Sprint I always kept asking myself „How diverse are our ideas going to be?“ „If there is enough time to explore those ideas?“ and „How are we going to pick the best ones?“. I would recommend using more games in sequences for the best output.
How to use this book
I found that this book is handy, not just for reading it once and using some of the games in it, but especially when you use it as a place to go for games and possible paths to solutions in the future. I’ve read Gamestorming, and then constantly was going back. When we needed a game for visualising a customer, when we needed to generate good quality ideas for cashcow projects, when I needed to explain SWOT analysis in my bachelor thesis and so on…
There, in my view, is one limitation. To unlock the potential of this book, you already have to be capable of analysing the situation in front of you and be able to determine what is needed to reach a solution/goal or whatever you assess you need right now. This is needed because these (and some other) variabilities determine what game/principle you have to use.
I believe, that it was good, that I read Gamestorming in my third year of Tiimiakatmia. I already had some experience and a decent overview of the processes behind innovation methods and teamwork. It helped me to be more confident in choosing and creating games for various situations.
Possibilities are endless
The most valuable thing I took from this book is not the individual games, they are great and useful, don’t get me wrong, but what I learned is that you can create your own games. The book teaches you the principles, that are used in games and from those you can create your own rules to tackle your challenges. You start with a blank canvas and can fill it with whatever you want - your own method to get from A to B. This is, to me, much more valuable. The independent and out-of-the-box thinking about problems. I learned how to create games / which games to use in situations that I will tackle. Of course, it always is a little bit of trial and error, but that is the fun of innovation and pushing yourself and your team in undiscovered waters.
ATP
Example of my use and reflection of some of the games from GameStorming.
3-12-3 brainstorming
I used this method at our business meeting to generate ideas for cashcow project. My aim was to „spice up“ the usual brainstorming.
What went well?
What went poorly?
What I will change next time?
Empathy map
I used this method during our birth giving for Decathlon, which I’ve led as a project leader and facilitator of the Sprint method, to visualise a user of our end product.
What went well?
What went poorly?
What I will change next time?
- I will keep it the same, maybe with a bit more control and dividing between categories
Storyboard
What went well?
What went poorly?
- A bit of confusion about the order of tiles drew
What I will change next time?
- It would be useful to have more time
What games have I created?
After reading this book, especially how the game process works, I used it to modify Sprint using the principles I learned. I needed (and wanted) to fit Sprint into 8 hours for use in our BG for Decathlon. I scratched some games and added some, but most importantly I slashed the times given for each game. When leading our team, what I thought about the most was the 80/20 rule and adjusted accordingly. It went really well and I have a whole document dedicated just to this „new game“ and its reflection, so do not hesitate to ask me, if you are interested in more details.
