Book review: Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers

Did you ever attend an unfruitful meeting? I have. I also prepared such meetings, to my shame. The issue is getting people to communicate and to create during these meetings, and getting the mood to this point is not an easy task.

Content and opinions

The whole book is geared towards games, but it is just another way of expressing a meeting. Take every meeting as a game where everyone can win. The book starts with two chapters on the definition of a successful meeting. It lays down the path to the different kinds of game the book will explore.

After a chapter on the different common grounds of all games, the book goes on with what it calls Core Games, that is basic games that work all the time. The introduction presented three steps in a meeting, and those steps will each have one complete chapter with different games. The last chapter is an example of applying games to an actual problem.

Each game chapter exposes several games from different horizons and from different people. How the game is played, the number of players, the time it must take, … all this information is given in 2 or 3 pages. Drawings help the given explanations and give some ideas in how games can be played.

Conclusion

Of course, it’s not easy to apply these games in a meeting. Will the participants be receptive enough to try being creative with games? Will there be something good that will turn up at the end of this kind of meetings? The mood inside your firm may answer this. I suggest you start with some close collegues, and then go on with more and more people when you master these tools and when you see their efficiency.

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