When facing a blank space, or a situation in which you can’t quite define the problem, the most difficult step to take can be the first one. These games are designed to help you frame and describe your problem so that you can then jump into solving. In some cases, these games help participants generate a large and diverse set of ideas, in other cases, they help map out the space to be explored.
Consult GATHER for additional ideas that are not included below.
Objective: This activity compresses the essentials of an ideation session into a short format: 3 minutes for generating observations, 12 minutes for combining observations into concepts, 3 minutes for presenting. Strict time keeping forces spontaneous, quick-fire decisions and doesn’t allow for overthinking. This activity can be used as an energizer before a longer ideation exercise or as a standalone activity, and works equally well in generating new ideas or improvements to existing ones.
Number of Players: Up to 10. Beyond 10, the activity gets slowed down and may require creating groups of three instead of pairs.
Duration: 21-30 minutes, depending on number of participants
How to Play: Narrow your topic to be explored to two words, for example, “energy efficiency” rather than “How do we incentivize utilities to install energy efficiency measures in residential customer’s homes?” By doing so, you will evoke thinking about the topic’s defining aspects first, before moving into new concepts or proposing solutions.
Distribute a stack of index cards and markers to all participants. Explain the rules then immediately begin. Speed is key.
After presenting, groups can dig deeper on concepts, integrate ideas into each other, or vote/rank concepts to decide which they should expand upon.
Objective: When a group is already working on a problem but running out of ideas for solutions, the Anti-Problem game helps people get unstuck. By participants identifying ways to solve a problem opposite to their current problem, it becomes easier for them to see where a current solution might be going astray.
Number of players: 5-20, break larger groups down into groups of 3-4
Duration of play: 30-45 minutes
How to play:
This game is designed to help teams break out of existing patterns. The intention is not to solve a complex problem in 30 minutes, but to give participants a new approach that can lead to a solution, even if that idea comes after the meeting. Use the game to segue into further conversation about the real problem.
Objective: A simple way to generate ideas, share them, and build on them within a group. Multiple hands, eyes, and minds can yield some of the most interesting, creative results.
This game ensures that everyone in the group generates ideas, allows ideas to emerge before being critiqued, and creates ideas with multiple owners which leads to a greater chance of follow-through.
Number of players: 5-15
Duration: 30-45 minutes
How to Play:
(You can also use the brainwriting structure by instructing participants to write ideas down on flip-charts and then rotate around the room adding to ideas on the other flip-charts.)
Objective: In bringing together diverse stakeholders who may not be familiar with, or agree with, each other’s perspectives, it can be difficult for participants to engage in rich and meaningful conversation. This game allows participants to voice opinions, but also activates attention and primes listening and observing skills, so that a more substantive conversation can take place.
Number of players: medium to large groups
Duration of play: 40-45 minutes
How to play:
Most of us aren’t used to listening, observing, and being accountable for observations, this activity is about engaging those skills. Talk to the group about their experience of being silent and observing. What was difficult? What was easy? Did it affect their perception of the topic and the other players? Use this as a segue to a heightened give-and-take between stakeholders.
Objective: A poster session allows participants to present their most passionate ideas in an accelerated format. It forces them to boil their ideas down to the the essentials and represent them via simple images.
Number of players: 10-100
Duration of play: 20 minutes to develop posters, unlimited time to browse
How to play: Creating a poster forces experts to stop and think about the best way to communicate the core concepts of their material, avoiding the default “show up and throw up.” A set of images that represent the meeting topic will help participants become more familiar with the topic and provides a framework for identifying follow-up topics.
Start by framing the problem. Explain to participants that there are more good ideas floating around than there is time to address them all. By creating posters, they will get a quick overview of all the existing ideas and can then decide where to dive in deeper.
Each participant has 20 minutes to create a poster, with the following two constraints:
If participants get stuck, suggest these frameworks:
Once 20 minutes is up, have participants hang their poster on the wall and circulate to view the others. Use dot voting to identify which ideas to pursue further.
Objective: Often in projects, learning occurs after things have already gone wrong. Team members will gather in a “post-mortem” to reflect on bad assumptions and courses of action that resulted in the disaster.
A “pre-mortem” allows participants to use their collective experience to identify risks at the beginning of a project. This is infinitely more valuable than identifying risks post-disaster, as this is a time in which participants can act upon risks to prevent problems down the line.
Number of players: Any, but small teams typically have the most open dialogue
Duration of play: Dependent upon the scope, but generally allow five minutes per participant.
How to play: Most useful at the beginning of a project, after the goals and plans have been established. Start with the question, “What will go wrong?” or “How will this end in disaster?” Then let participants brainstorm, postng their ideas into a designated space. Rank or vote upon risks to determine priority, then identify the actions needed to address the risks.
This game allows all key team members to directly name risks and voice concerns that may otherwise go unaddressed.
Objective: At the beginning of a project, it may benefit a group to map out their stakeholders so that they can develop a strategy for engaging them.
Number of players: Any; key members of a team who have a collective awareness of all aspects of a project
Duration: 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the depth of the analysis
How to play:
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