loss of productivity caused by these kinds of mistakes is considerable, these mistakes result in more than that. They generate frustration among the team as work must be redone. They result in unnecessary meetings, because once the mistakes are realized, yet another meeting must be called to figure out what to do.
mistakes can be prevented through the use of the games described in this book. Yes, games.
solve complex problems through collaborative play. Drawing from their rich and varied experiences and backing it up with theory, Dave, Sunni, and James start with an overview of why these games help organizations become markedly more effective.
IN 1807, THE GRIMM BROTHERS BEGAN COLLECTING FOLK TALES that had, up until that point, never been written down. In 1812, they published a collection of 86 tales under the title Children's and Household Stories. By the seventh edition, the last published
IN 1807, THE GRIMM BROTHERS BEGAN COLLECTING FOLK TALES that had, up until that point, never been written down. In 1812, they published a collection of 86 tales under the title Children's and Household Stories. By the seventh edition, the last published in their lifetime, the collection had grown to 211 tales.
If not for the work of the brothers Grimm, we might never have heard such stories as Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Frog Prince.
In an industrial society, workers are expected to fit standardized job descriptions and perform their duties according to clear policies, procedures, and prescriptions.
Knowledge work is fundamentally different: workers are expected not so much to perform standard roles but to generate creative, innovative results that surprise and delight customers and colleagues.
We fully expect that when designers, inventors, and other creative people go into a room with a goal, they will come out with more or less creative discoveries and results.
Although when we watch them at work, we can observe some combination of sketching, animated conversations, messy desks, and drinking, the fundamental nature of what happens in that room remains mostly a mystery.
If you are a knowledge worker, you must become, to some degree, creative.
successful creative people tend to employ simple strategies and practices to get where they want to go.
my co-authors and I set out, much like the brothers Grimm, to collect the best of these practices wherever
a game creates an alternative world, a model world. To enter a game space, the players must agree to abide by the rules of that space, and they must enter willingly.
By agreeing to a set of rules (stay behind the line, take turns kicking the ball, etc.), the two boys enter a shared world. Without that agreement, the game would not be possible.
"Silicon soup"—the deeply interconnected network of Silicon Valley, where ideas and people cross-pollinate like bees in a single massive hive.
We chose to call the book Gamestorming because it seemed to come closer to describing the phenomenon than anything else we could think of.
Often it seemed that we found ourselves looking at a series of Russian dolls—whenever we identified the source of a game, it seemed that it may have been derived from another, earlier source, and it always seemed that there might be a previous claimant lurking in the wings. When we use the term "based on," the description is based on some kind of written material where we have identified a source. When we use the term "inspired by," we have identified the premise, idea, or core concept, but the game itself was based on oral histories or our own design. If we were unable to identify a source reliably, we have marked the game source as unknown. If you have ideas about the origins of these games, please share them with us. In fact, we fully expect that as we engage with a larger community around this project, we will add more games, refine the overall collection, and improve our understanding of the rich history of these games in future editions. We have set up an online forum at www.gogamestorm.com, where we'd like to enlist your help. It is our hope that you will contribute games based on your personal knowledge and experience, that you will help us clarify the history of the ideas and practices, and that through your comments you can help us all better understand the complex and fascinating history of games at play in creative work. —Dave Gray Saint Louis June 2010 Chapter 1. What Is a Game? GAMES AND PLAY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Imagine a boy playing with a ball. He kicks the ball against a wall, and the ball bounces back to him. He stops the ball with his foot and kicks it again. By engaging in this kind of play, the boy learns to associate certain movements of his body with the movements of the ball in space. We could call this associative play. Now imagine that the boy is waiting for a friend. The friend appears, and the two boys begin to walk down a sidewalk together, kicking the ball back and forth as they go. Now the play has gained a social dimension; one bo
Often it seemed that we found ourselves looking at a series of Russian dolls—whenever we identified the source of a game, it seemed that it may have been derived from another, earlier source, and it always seemed that there might be a previous claimant lurking in the wings.
We have set up an online forum at www.gogamestorm.com, where we'd like to enlist your help. It is our hope that you will contribute games based on your personal knowledge and experience, that you will help us clarify the history of the ideas and practices, and that through your comments you can help us all better understand the complex and fascinating history of games at play in creative work. —Dave Gray Saint Louis June 2010
To enter into a game is to enter another kind of space where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended
To enter into a game is to enter another kind of space where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended and replaced with the rules of the game.
The Evolution of the Game World Every game is a world which evolves in stages, as follows: imagine the world, create the world, open the world, explore the world, and close the world. Here's how it works:
Imagine the world. Before the game can begin you must imagine a possible world; a temporary space, within which players can explore any set of ideas or possibilities.
Create the world. A game world is formed by giving it boundaries, rules, and artifacts.
Open the world. A game world can only be entered by agreement among the players. To agree, they must understand the game's boundaries,
Once players have entered the world they try to realize their goals within the constraints of the game world's system.
Explore the world. Goals are the animating force that drives exploration; they provide a necessary tension between the initial condition of the world and some desired state.
Close the world. A game is finished when the game's goals have been met. Although achieving a goal gives the players a sense of gratification and accomplishment, the goal is not really the point of the game so much as a kind of marker to ceremonially close the game space.
loss of productivity caused by these kinds of mistakes is considerable, these mistakes result in more than that. They generate frustration among the team as work must be redone. They result in unnecessary meetings, because once the mistakes are realized, yet another meeting must be called to figure out what to do.
mistakes can be prevented through the use of the games described in this book. Yes, games.
solve complex problems through collaborative play. Drawing from their rich and varied experiences and backing it up with theory, Dave, Sunni, and James start with an overview of why these games help organizations become markedly more effective.
IN 1807, THE GRIMM BROTHERS BEGAN COLLECTING FOLK TALES that had, up until that point, never been written down. In 1812, they published a collection of 86 tales under the title Children's and Household Stories. By the seventh edition, the last published
IN 1807, THE GRIMM BROTHERS BEGAN COLLECTING FOLK TALES that had, up until that point, never been written down. In 1812, they published a collection of 86 tales under the title Children's and Household Stories. By the seventh edition, the last published in their lifetime, the collection had grown to 211 tales.
If not for the work of the brothers Grimm, we might never have heard such stories as Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Frog Prince.
In an industrial society, workers are expected to fit standardized job descriptions and perform their duties according to clear policies, procedures, and prescriptions.
Knowledge work is fundamentally different: workers are expected not so much to perform standard roles but to generate creative, innovative results that surprise and delight customers and colleagues.
We fully expect that when designers, inventors, and other creative people go into a room with a goal, they will come out with more or less creative discoveries and results.
Although when we watch them at work, we can observe some combination of sketching, animated conversations, messy desks, and drinking, the fundamental nature of what happens in that room remains mostly a mystery.
If you are a knowledge worker, you must become, to some degree, creative.
successful creative people tend to employ simple strategies and practices to get where they want to go.
my co-authors and I set out, much like the brothers Grimm, to collect the best of these practices wherever
a game creates an alternative world, a model world. To enter a game space, the players must agree to abide by the rules of that space, and they must enter willingly.
By agreeing to a set of rules (stay behind the line, take turns kicking the ball, etc.), the two boys enter a shared world. Without that agreement, the game would not be possible.
"Silicon soup"—the deeply interconnected network of Silicon Valley, where ideas and people cross-pollinate like bees in a single massive hive.
We chose to call the book Gamestorming because it seemed to come closer to describing the phenomenon than anything else we could think of.
Often it seemed that we found ourselves looking at a series of Russian dolls—whenever we identified the source of a game, it seemed that it may have been derived from another, earlier source, and it always seemed that there might be a previous claimant lurking in the wings. When we use the term "based on," the description is based on some kind of written material where we have identified a source. When we use the term "inspired by," we have identified the premise, idea, or core concept, but the game itself was based on oral histories or our own design. If we were unable to identify a source reliably, we have marked the game source as unknown. If you have ideas about the origins of these games, please share them with us. In fact, we fully expect that as we engage with a larger community around this project, we will add more games, refine the overall collection, and improve our understanding of the rich history of these games in future editions. We have set up an online forum at www.gogamestorm.com, where we'd like to enlist your help. It is our hope that you will contribute games based on your personal knowledge and experience, that you will help us clarify the history of the ideas and practices, and that through your comments you can help us all better understand the complex and fascinating history of games at play in creative work. —Dave Gray Saint Louis June 2010 Chapter 1. What Is a Game? GAMES AND PLAY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Imagine a boy playing with a ball. He kicks the ball against a wall, and the ball bounces back to him. He stops the ball with his foot and kicks it again. By engaging in this kind of play, the boy learns to associate certain movements of his body with the movements of the ball in space. We could call this associative play. Now imagine that the boy is waiting for a friend. The friend appears, and the two boys begin to walk down a sidewalk together, kicking the ball back and forth as they go. Now the play has gained a social dimension; one bo
Often it seemed that we found ourselves looking at a series of Russian dolls—whenever we identified the source of a game, it seemed that it may have been derived from another, earlier source, and it always seemed that there might be a previous claimant lurking in the wings.
We have set up an online forum at www.gogamestorm.com, where we'd like to enlist your help. It is our hope that you will contribute games based on your personal knowledge and experience, that you will help us clarify the history of the ideas and practices, and that through your comments you can help us all better understand the complex and fascinating history of games at play in creative work. —Dave Gray Saint Louis June 2010
To enter into a game is to enter another kind of space where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended
To enter into a game is to enter another kind of space where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended and replaced with the rules of the game.
The Evolution of the Game World Every game is a world which evolves in stages, as follows: imagine the world, create the world, open the world, explore the world, and close the world. Here's how it works:
Imagine the world. Before the game can begin you must imagine a possible world; a temporary space, within which players can explore any set of ideas or possibilities.
Create the world. A game world is formed by giving it boundaries, rules, and artifacts.
Open the world. A game world can only be entered by agreement among the players. To agree, they must understand the game's boundaries,
Once players have entered the world they try to realize their goals within the constraints of the game world's system.
Explore the world. Goals are the animating force that drives exploration; they provide a necessary tension between the initial condition of the world and some desired state.
Close the world. A game is finished when the game's goals have been met. Although achieving a goal gives the players a sense of gratification and accomplishment, the goal is not really the point of the game so much as a kind of marker to ceremonially close the game space.
