Ingredients:
• Internet access

Players (5..8 recommended):
• Event leader
• Employees / team members or event attendees

The goal of this game, based on Nick Oostvogel’s Actions Centered, is to examine multiple aspects of an event in order to form original ideas on how it can be enhanced in the future. Clicking on this image will start an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, this image will be used as the “game board,” and there will be five different icons that players can drag onto the chart and describe to capture their ideas.

• Puzzles: Questions for which you have no answer, represented by a question mark.
• Risks: Future pitfalls that can endanger the project, represented by a bomb.
• Appreciations: What you liked during the previous iteration, represented by a smiley face.
• Wishes: Not improvements, but ideas of your ideal project, represented by a star.

The chart is divided into five quadrants for the five categories of thoughts.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the ideas. Also, you can use the integrated chat facility to encourage the players to expand on their ideas and come up with fresh insights.

Key Points:
This unique strategy involves extensive teamwork and spatial organization, so your group can think differently about retrospectives and brainstorm changes for progress. Also, by writing thoughts down and working together, participants will be more comfortable providing ideas for how to improve the event rather than feeling as if they are criticizing past ideas. Play Actions for Retrospectives to reflect on the past in order to advance toward the future.

Ingredients:
• Internet access

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

Directions:
Often times your end state is not what you imagined, as there are always unpredictable obstacles and detours that alter your trek to the finish line. To help you recognize these interferences before you begin your journey, we have collaborated with the Gamestorming team to bring you this online game based on the well-known SWOT analysis strategy. The goal of the SWOT Analysis Game is to uncover how to attain your desired end state.

Clicking on this image will start an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, there will be four different icons that you can drag onto your online SWOT Analysis “game board” to capture your ideas:

• Rocket ships represent opportunities – leads that you can focus your energy on
• The fit person represents strengths – what you have going for you
• The weak person represents weaknesses – anything that can be improved upon
• Bombs represent threats – obstacles that you must surpass

The SWOT chart is divided into four quadrants for the four categories of thoughts.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the ideas. Also, you can use the integrated chat facility to encourage the players to expand on their ideas and come up with fresh insights.

Key Points:
The SWOT Analysis Game allows you to predict the challenges that stand between the present and your desired destination, as well as see your advantages that can be used to overcome these obstacles. Rather than waiting to understand what should have been done in hindsight, take time to identify what you must do to attain your goal. The extensive collaboration involved can uncover blind spots and motivate deeper insights. Also, the spatial organization will allow you to understand specific factors that will be integral in your journey toward your target.

Ingredients:
• Internet access

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

Directions:
We have collaborated with the Gamestorming team, to bring you the Pros/Cons Game, which is based on Benjamin Franklin’s Pros/Cons List. The goal of this game is to separate the positive and negative aspects of a choice to help you organize your thoughts and make careful decisions. Clicking on the image to the right will take you to an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com. Here, you will see the same image being used as the “game board.” Reasons to choose the option will be placed on the left side of the t-chart while negative aspects of the option get put on the right. There will also be two icons in the upper left corner of the table that symbolize the ideas for the two categories:

Blue plus: positive aspects of the option
Red minus: negative aspects of the option

Players add their ideas to the “game board” by dragging icons to the respective categories and describing what each represents. The chart has been divided into three regions to organize the level of importance of the players’ ideas. The top of the chart is designated for more pressing aspects while the bottom is for less important ideas.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the descriptions and positions of the ideas. Use the integrated chat facility to communicate with your participants. Encourage players to expand on their ideas and motivate them to penetrate the various aspects of the option.

Key Points:
The Pros/Cons Game involves visual organization and critical thinking to aid your decision-making process. By separating the positive and negative aspects of your options, you can better understand the benefits of a choice and make a careful decision.

Timing: 1 hour

Ingredients:
• Internet access

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

Directions:
Clicking on the image to the right will take you to an “instant play” game at innovationgames.com, where you can organize your thoughts on how to create a game to solve an issue. Here, you will see the same image being used as the “game board.” This simple chart consists of 5 sections, representing the 5 steps of the game-creation strategy which conveniently form the acronym PLAID (pronounced “played”). There will also be various icons in the upper left corner of the chart that symbolize the ideas for each category:

1. Problem – red squares, what you want to solve
2. Lead Objectives – stars, what you hope to gain from solving the problem
3. Aspects – purple squares, the different parts of the problem
4. Invent – blue squares, the game created to solve the problem
5. Debrief – light bulbs, how the game worked out

Players add their ideas to the chart by dragging icons to the respective categories and describing what each represents. Once the chart is complete, participants will be ready to create their own game to educate others about a complex problem.

All moves can be seen in real time by each participant, so everyone can collaborate to edit the descriptions and positions of the ideas. Use the integrated chat facility to communicate with your participants. Encourage players to expand on their ideas and motivate them to penetrate the knotted aspects of a problem.

Key Points:
This game incorporates collaboration and critical thinking, inspiring players to see past the surface of a dilemma and dig deeper to understand its complexities. By visually organizing the aspects of an issue and dividing it into 5 simple steps, players can teach each other the tangle of factors involved in certain dilemmas while gaining a genuine comprehension of the predicament themselves. Play Agile Game Incubator to motivate participants to learn-by-doing and to create fresh to solve problems.

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.

Ingredients:
• Internet access
• A goal

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

Directions:
This version of the famous impact-effort technique has been popularized by XPLANE. Aiming to find the most efficient strategy to reach your goal, Impact & Effort Matrix maps possible actions against two factors: the potential impact and the effort required to implement. By organizing your ideas, you can see which ones will lead to the greatest payoffs and lowest costs before you get stuck on a twisted road of wasted time.

Clicking on this image will bring you to an “instant game” at innovationgames.com, where you can play Impact & Effort Matrix online. The same image will be used as the matrix, which has a different impact-effort combination in each quadrant.

• High Impact, Low Effort: The best ideas go here!
• High Impact, High Effort: Further study is likely required.
• Low Impact, High Effort: Probably best to avoid these.
• Low Impact, Low Effort: Further study is likely required.

The light bulbs you will see at the upper left corner of the chart represent ideas. Simply add an idea to the chart by dragging a light bulb to its corresponding quadrant and describing what it is.

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

Key Points:
This technique is a necessary first step in reaching your goal; while it is great to know where you are going, it is also critical to understand how to get there. The spatial organization and group collaboration involved in the game helps identify how to optimize the benefits and minimize the costs of reaching your goal. Play Impact & Effort Matrix to map the most effective way to arrive at your objective.

15 minutes

Ingredients:

• Copies of the twelve principles of agile software (http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html)
• White-boards and/or flip-charts
• Markers

Recipe:
This is an exercise that we came up with to better communicate the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto. In their existing form, it is challenging for people to read and understand each principle and, just as importantly, to easily refer to them later.

• Divide participants in to groups, each with a white-board or flip-chart and markers.
• Have the teams write down the numbers 1 through 12.
• Challenge each team to, within a 15 minute time-box, come up with three words maximum that effectively capture each of the twelve principles.
• To avoid ‘analysis paralysis’, make sure to give the teams time updates throughout (e.g. 10, 5, 2, 1 minute warnings). You will find that teams will speed up towards the end.
• When time is up, go through each principle and discuss which are the most important words. Sometimes I like to ask people what their most and least favorite principles are.
• Post the condensed principles somewhere visible, so as to make it a regular talking point.

Here is an example:

1. Produce Value Early
2. Welcome Change
3. Iterative Delivery
4. Daily Business Collaboration
5. Trust Motivated Team
6. Face to Face
7. Working Software
8. Sustainable Pace
9. Technical Excellence
10. K.I.S.S.
11. Self-Organize
12. Reflect and Adjust

Learning Points:

• This is an effective way of capturing each principle in a much more concise and memorable way.
• Probably the most valuable part of this exercise, is in the discussion that the teams have when trying to come up with the words. They need to first understand the principle before breaking it down.
• Teams can establish a collective understanding and ownership of each principle.
• This also makes for a good review exercise in a classroom environment.

Ingredients:

• Sizing board (a whiteboard or flip-chart or the like; divided into 5 columns: XS, S, M, L, XL)
• Timer
• A set of prepared stories
• A set of 5 X 3 cards
• Tape for attaching the cards to the board

Recipe:

Have the team stand-up in a half circle facing their sizing board.

Shuffle a deck of story cards and place them face down on a table in front of the sizing board. Place a timer next to the cards.

The game begins when the facilitator starts the timer, which is the signal for the first member to perform the following steps:

• pick the top card off the deck
• attach a piece of tape to the card
• read the story on the card out loud
• assigns the card to one of the five columns on the board (XS, S, M, L. XL)
• provide a reason to the group
• start the timer for the next player

It is important assigning the card to one of the five columns has to be the player’s own decision, without any external interference. This is why the player should provide the reason for his or her decision after the card has been assigned. If the player does not assign the card within one minute, the card will be assigned to the column in the middle. The player then restarts the timer for the next player.

After sizing the card, the player presents his or her reason. The reason may be based on expert knowledge, from past experiences, or observations from other projects. It is essential that the rest of the team observes and listens carefully to understand the overall context and development of the board. All other team members are therefore silent without discussions or judgment.

After a few rounds, there should be enough cards on the board to give the team members the option to, on their turn, move an existing card on the board into a different column instead of picking a new card from the deck. As before, the player reads the story out loud followed by a reason which supports the decision to re-size.
Once all user story cards are on the board and sized, each team member, on their turn, can either continue moving cards between columns or simply “pass” if they are satisfied with the current results. If a player does not make a decision within the one-minute time-limit, it will be interpreted as a “pass”.

The game ends when the pile of story cards is gone and every member of the team signals “pass”.

Challenges:
The biggest challenge in the beginning is the lack of a reference story – the Chihuahua (see Doggy Planning). Because no card has been assigned yet, the first player will not have something to compare his or her story to. And since the cards will be shuffled, we won’t know if the first stories are really small, medium, or large until we uncover more stories. This is OK and and important lesson of the game. Every player will have the opportunity to change their mind in future rounds, so the important thing is to just get started. Remember, the game does not stop until all players signal “pass”.

It is quite typical that two or more players disagree about a few assignments, and the card may end up endlessly moving up and down the board. If this happens, just take the card and place it on the bottom of the deck. That way, the sizing can continue and the card should have more context after all the other cards have been sized.

Learning Points:

• Group user stories according to their relative size/effort
• Reach a democratic consensus quickly
• Ensure that each team member has a say
• Learn how user stories are captured
• Actively collaborate in a fun way

Variations

• Play with 3 (S,M.L) columns instead of 5 (XS, S, M, L. XL)
• Begin with 3 columns until the team requests more granularity, then the moderator adds additional columns
• Assign the Fibonacci sequence to the columns (1,2,3,5,8)

CREDIT: Jochen Krebs