Game ingredients
Nynke June 10th, 2006
For designing Whining to Win Wine in agile ways I used the following requirements:
- Resources: People, bottle(s) of wine and beer, overlooked needs of self, life and others. The latter resource seems readily available everywhenwhere.
- Rewards: Bottle of wine, eternal honor, and hearing that what was not said (before).
- Time: A relaxed couple of hours, may be distributed over days.
- Space: European Consultants Camp or Agile Open. In general, a safe setting with trusted playful people, preferably off-site.
- Focus: Expressing ourselves and truly listening to each other’s whining while sipping wine or beer.
Tips: Do not suggest solutions to problems brought up. Or if you do, make them silly. Or provide a mirror problem as a competing whine. Greeting the brought up problems with joy for what they are, works best. Problems are useful and enjoyable, and have a right to live too. People like solving their own problems their own way, for increasing self-esteem and self-confidence.
Other interesting desensitization games I create follow similar patterns. Advanced games have particular rules to focus on. For example, the focus of the “Swatting (She)Bear” game is on formlessness and mental aikido practice. Its rules are:
- Only authentic (congruent) swats where the message doesn’t transfer more than the swat itself, count.
- Only swatting of other change artists sssjticking out extensions (for swatting) is allowed.
- Strongly preferred are swats related to Walking talk and Talking Walk. Those count for 3 swats minimally.
The true count for a swat depends on the observable elegance of a swat, the humor in it’s stances, and the amount of higher energy from the swattee redirected for grounding the swattee. If its a full redirect and no energy whatsoever needs to be channeled by swatter, the game is over and won by both. Example in Preventing creative constipation.
Related from my partners in crime:
Rick’s “If only I had known II”
