What do you want to learn about Games Facilitation?
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Dear Reader,
I’ve been invited to present a 90-minute session about Games Facilitation at Deep Agile 2010. And so I would like to exercise the Wisdom of Crowds and ask you this: what do you want to learn about Games Facilitation and why? Reply by submitting a comment (or two!) and I’ll convert them into a set of presentation goals with acceptance criteria.
All ideas by 1 May please! Many thanks and hope to see you at Deep Agile 2010. Be there or be square!
No. 1 — April 14th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I’d like to run games less formally. That is, I don’t want to have to get everyone into a training room and say “right, now we’re going to learn how to do prioritisation. This is a 45-minute game..”
Instead, I want to run games that can be explained in one minute and run in five.
Oh, and I heard something cool at Agile Central Europe about using games to generate empathy, so I’d rather like to participate in designing a game that gets designers and developers to understand each other..
No. 2 — April 14th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I’d like to learn better techniques for breaking introverts out of their shell when facilitating a game.
The biggest challenge I often face is trying to get introverts involved more when facilitating a game for a team. It’s an obstacle I always hit once in awhile and sometimes I can break the introverts out of their shells, while other times nothing I seem to do will help. Especially on non-agile teams where some participants are used to working alone in a cube all day. đŸ™‚
No. 3 — May 9th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Hi Portia,
My questions on facilitation arise from things I’d find difficult if I were to hold a presentation or workshop:
How do you introduce yourself and the session to attendees in order to awake their curiosity and interest?
How can you inspire credibility and trust?
How do you maintain an assertive attitude throughout a session?
How can you make a session interactive and fun?
What should happen if a session takes more time than estimated?
What are the session’s critical points that shouldn’t be missed?
How can you improvise if circumstances demand it?
If the session’s purpose was to deliver a single message, what would that message be? How would you present it to better stick in attendees’ minds?
No. 4 — May 9th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Hi Portia, I’ve got a few questions on facilitation:
1. How do you get everyone involved ? How do you encourage shy people to participate and discourage bullies to dominate the session ?
2. Given people showing up don’t have the same skillset, how do you find the thin line between frustrating the audience (i.e. too challenging subjects for their skills) and boring the audience ?
3. How do you keep people focused on the subject ? If people are not enagaged into the session/activity, their attention might drift away.
4. How do you keep yourself focused on the subject ? People asking questions might cause the facilitator to drift away from the subject.
No. 5 — May 9th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
1. How do you make participants enjoy and have fun, but also understand the serious sides of the exercises by providing a good learning experience?
2. How do you adapt the game to the group dynamic?
3. How do you take out the best in each individual? Do you try to know them before creating the groups?
4. Do you make the game open-ended or the conclusion is the same every time the game is played?
5. How do you introduce the game, how do you present the parallels between the game and the actual business? Do you alter the games to match the participants business or do you make the games more generic?
6. How do you bring the game back on track when different discussions tend to interrupt it?
No. 6 — May 10th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Gywn, James, Dyan, Maria and Ioana,
Many thanks for all your questions on facilitation. They make great input for the session!