Timing: 1 hour

Ingredients:
• Internet access

Players (5..8 recommended):
• Business Manager / Business Owner
• Employees / Team members

Directions:
While creative ideas often form during the brainstorming process of a project, originality can be lost as time goes on. Complicated plans, difficult decisions, and limited resources often force you to resort to used, familiar ideas. To surpass the stagnant stream of stale strategies, you must think outside of the box to generate new, feasible ideas. Ironically, with Gamestorming’s productive game, you will think inside of a box to do so. Use the visual organization in How-Now-Wow Matrix to create original ideas that can be implemented efficiently.

Clicking on the image to the right will take you to an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, there will be a 2×2 matrix with “originality” on the x-axis and “feasibility” on the y-axis.

  • How (yellow) – original, difficult to implement
    – This represents ideas that are innovative, but not feasible. This area is good for setting future goals.
  • Now (blue) – unoriginal, easy to implement
    – This is for used ideas that are familiar and known to work well
  • Wow (green) – original, easy to implement
    – This category is for creative ideas that can be executed. Aim to form as many ideas in this category as you can.


There will be a light bulb icon at the upper left corner of the chart, which symbolizes ideas that your players come up with. Participants drag light bulbs to different areas of the chart corresponding to the originality and feasibility of their ideas, and describe what each one represents.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the descriptions and positions of the ideas. Communicate using the integrated chat facility to work together and form original ideas.

Key Points:
By collaborating and graphically arranging ideas, participants can expand their boundaries to let their innovative thoughts flow. Also, the extensive input from the players provides multiple perspectives to alter ideas and to ensure the feasibility of the suggestions. Resist the temptation to resort to overused ideas; play How-Now-Wow Matrix to identify what you can do to make your project a success.

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