Imagination and creativity are the roots of all change. Creativity is not concerned with solutions in a logical linear sense, but rather it embraces complexity, divergent thinking, and curiosity.
Some of the greatest innovators of our time believed that creative thinking was critical in solving complex problems. Leonardo da Vinci believed that to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. Thomas Edison held over 1,000 patents and went as far as to give his assistants idea quotas, even though he knew most of them would fail. Albert Einstein believed visualizing solutions through the use of diagrams played a more significant role in his thinking process than the words or numbers ever did. Even though Da Vinci, Edison, and Einstein were in different fields of study, they were all able to separate themselves from normalcy and engage their fields of study in a more meaningful way.
Creativity in business and academia matters more than ever before. Yet, many businesses and research labs continue to rely on conventional brainstorming to generate new ideas and guide project development. Created by an advertising company (BBDO) in the 1940s, the brainstorming process looked to be the key to unlocking creativity. Brainstorming was great in the context, which it was created; where the majority of the staff specializes in creativity and there was already an underlying culture of creativity. However, over time brainstorming has demonstrated to be an ineffective process for generating innovative ideas, especially in groups that lack creativity.
Gamestorming may provide an innovative solution to this challenge.
It combines creativity, brainstorming, and business to create a simple but breakthrough method for facilitating creative thinking and discovery. Without diving too much into the details, think of a “game” as a workshop with specific processes to help guide your team to a creative outcome. There are different games depending on the result you’re looking for: Generating new ideas, tough decision-making, visioning and planning, introducing new members to a team, opening meetings, problem-solving, documenting a complex problem, identifying issues and problems, and much more.
Hearing that a majority of companies in Silicon Valley have now incorporated Gamestorming in their meetings was enough to sell me on the idea but some of the benefits speak for themselves. Gamestorming allows everyone the same level of input, which helps form a collaborative working environment. Unlike conventional brainstorming, games provide users with a collection of structured processes for collecting and filtering ideas; and most importantly, Gamestorming is a fun way to keep a team energized and engaged.
In the context of the Community-AID lab, Gamstorming can be useful for a number of situations. It can provide us with tools for developing and introducing solutions to our community partners, as the problems our work aims to address are often complex and need divergent thinking.
So how do you start learning more about Gamestorming? Conveniently enough, Dave Gray, James Macanufo, and Sunni Brown published a book that walks through the philosophy, core rules, and 80+ games. Titled Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers, you’ll find it’s a book about a problem you didn't know you had and a solution that you've unknowingly used since childhood.
