Read anything awesome over spring break?
I did.
My favorite read was actually a reread, and I have a feeling I’ll be referencing it deep into the future. Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and James Macanufo wrote Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule-Breakers, and Changemakers.
If you’re responsible for helping people generate ideas and solutions in any capacity, you will love this book. You might also love the app, which I spent this morning test driving as well.
Some of my highlights:
“A game world is formed by giving it boundaries, rules, and artifacts.” p. 3
“Gamestorming is about creating game worlds specifically to explore and examine business challenges, to improve collaboration, and to generate novel insights about the way the world works and what kinds of possibilities we might find there.” p. 4
“You can’t be creative and critical simultaneously. People’s minds just don’t work that way. When you are exploring creative possibilities you need to shut down the critical part of your mind, and when you are making difficult choices, you should not try to be creative. Keep them separate and do them in order.” p. 16
“A good question is like an arrow you can aim at any challenge.” p. 17
“There are five kinds of questions for finding your way in complex challenge spaces: opening, navigating, examining, experimental, and closing questions.” p. 28
“The sticky note is one of the most useful tools for knowledge work because it allows you to break any complex topic into small, movable artifacts–knowledge atoms or nodes–that you can distribute into physical space by attaching them to your desk, walls, doors, and so on without wreaking total havoc. This allows you to quickly and easily explore all kinds of relationships between and among the atoms, and to keep these various alternatives within your visual field while you are working.” p. 33
“A good metaphor comes with a set of associations that will change your perspective and help you think differently about a topic.” p. 38
