Gamestorming
This is a workshop about how to incorporate game into brainstorming or ideation sessions by Dave Gray that I attended in UX week 2010. I picked a couple of good tips to conduct a workshop.
Ssshhhhh……
Every game has a rule. Pick a simple rule in the beginning of the gamestorming session. For example, if the facilitator says “ssssshhhhh…..” everybody has to reply and continue to “sssshhhh…..” In breakout exercises, this is a very powerful tool to get people’s attention back to the main stage, and the peer pressure will stop some people who just seem to can’t stop their precious discussion.
Status update
In the beginning of the session, ask participants to write their names and their mood, then share it with their groups. This helps to ice-break and make things (and your feeling) tangible and explicit. (you can also create a status board on your tables too, so others know when you are in a good or bad mood)
Open - Explore - Close
Two basic rules:
1) Never open and close at the same time
2) Always close what you open
Fire starting
As a starter, give immediately things that people care about. Questions are good fire starter.
Post Up
It’s a good idea to use post-it in the first few exercise. The more diverse the ideas are, the better. This quick individual exercise allows people to have equal voice, and their opinions would still be fresh and not polluted by another person who has a chance to speak earlier. Use one idea per post it!
Randomness
Shuffle table around, reverse and rotate things around, reframe – put things in different context. It helps create dynamicity in the team, or test concepts from different angle.
Improvisation
Don’t over-think, stay loose!
On time
Stick on the schedule and end on time. Very important!
The sketching fear
Teach people how to draw basic shapes to help them overcome the sketching fear. Show them how to draw these basic shapes, and ask people to draw along with you.
If you can draw these shapes, you can sketch almost any elements you see in the world.
Check out more ideas for gamestorming here: http://gogamestorm.com
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Tags: design, method, practice
Ketut Sulistyawati, PhD (aka. Sulis), is interested in design and research. Through this blog, she wants to document and share tips, principles, and practices in user experience, product design, research methods, human factors and ergonomics.
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