While working in San Francisco I attended a workshop called "Gamestorming” hosted by two user interface designers from Google. The session was based on a book entitled Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers written by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo.
I made a point of attending the workshop because I felt that meetings should be more worthwhile than the traditional meeting where attendance was pretty much the whole point. And, generally speaking, the takeaway from those meetings could have been communicated in a more straightforward and timely manner.
I really wanted to do something in meetings that would be innovative, break down barriers, and help unlock the creative potential of my colleagues and students. As it turned out, the Gamestorming workshop exceeded my expectations and completely transformed the way I conducted and structured meetings.
The book that served as the basis of the workshop is filled with simple but truly revolutionary techniques of visual thinking that companies like Google use to solve problems and encourage innovation. I've had fun and achieved amazing results using these intriguing techniques—such as affinity-mapping, graphic jams, who-do, 5 why's, 4 c's, and more. I highly recommend the book and the Gamestorming approach to facilitate meetings that really matter.
For a concise and excellent video introduction to Gamestorming watch the video below.