Some time ago, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Sunni Brown through Jeff Brantley, one of our trained facilitators. Sunni, in turn, introduced me to James Macanufo and Dave Gray of XPLANE. Since that chance initial meeting I’m very proud to say that we’re developing a strong friendship.
That’s not surprising, since our work is based on similar values, passions and principles. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to read an early draft of Gamestorming, the new book by Dave, Sunni and James. This is a wonderful book. (And I’m not saying that just because several Innovation Games® are featured in the book. Honest.)
I was even more thrilled when they said I could write the foreword to the book.
Yup. I asked them if I could write the foreword. Because this book is so good that I just knew I wanted to help frame the discussion of the games it contains. (Besides, I figure that if you buy their book, you might buy mine, and I need the 83 cents in royalties I make to help feed my four children).
Here is my foreword. Read it. Buy their book. Join the community at www.gogamestorm.com (and hopefully, the Innovation Games® community). And stay tuned — we’re planning on doing a lot more stuff together, including a games unconference in September 2010 and, if we’re accepted, a SXSW 2011 panel on games and play in business.
Foreword to Gamestorming
In the early 1960s, the celebrated children’s author Peggy Parrish introduced us to Amelia Bedelia, an overly literal housekeeper. Among other things, Amelia makes a sponge cake with real sponges, replants weeds when told to “weed the garden” and hits the road with a stick when she’s told that the family is going to “hit the road” when leaving for a camping trip. My children squeal with laughter when they read about her comical adventures.
I often find myself laughing along with my children, until I think of the Amelia Bedelia’s I’ve met at work. Suddenly, the mistakes that people make while trying to perform their job aren’t so funny. Mistakes that stem from a lack of clarity on the goals and objectives of a project or the failure to consider the ramifications of making a process change in a complex system. Mistakes created from teams who haven’t given themselves the freedom to explore alternatives, or from teams who haven’t invested the time to choose thoughtfully from the alternatives they’ve invented or discovered.
Although the loss of productivity caused by these kinds of mistakes is considerable, these mistakes result in more than a loss of productivity. 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. The mistakes clog up our email inboxes, because instead of being comfortable in knowing whom I must email about what, I instead just cc: or, even more insidiously, bcc:, everyone.
These mistakes can be prevented through the use of the games described in this book.
Yes, games.
As Dave, Sunni and James so thoughtfully explain, serious games help organizations 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 a overview of the theory of why these games help organizations become markedly more effective. Armed with this understanding, they then share with us a broad catalog of games that help teams can use to solve a variety of complex problems.
As a designer of such games, I am especially impressed that Dave, Sunni and James have included a wide variety of games, drawn from their experience and the collected experience of many others in our field. The result is that they have written a “Monday Morning Ready” book: You can read this enjoyable book in a single weekend and put the ideas to work when you start work on Monday morning.
Keep your copy of this book handy, though. Although you’ll likely start with just one or two of the games in this book, chances are good that you’re going to quickly return to this book, or the website www.gogamestorm.com, to see what new games Dave, Sunni and James (with the help of their dedicated community) have found to help you realize your goals.
Luke Hohmann
Founder and CEO
The Innovation Games® Company
