Satir workshops

This Game of Goose, an old obstacle board game, with its changed rules, is intended to create space for awareness of likely responses of a body (operational system) to given objectives and to strategic aim changes from the head (executive system). The rules have been adapted to serve collectives.

And by association this game prepares the way for Nextspectations, a tool for supporting systems that need (to learn) effective aiming and shooting in steering and anticipating ways -- Why Investigate System Responses?

Embedded process

This game must be embedded in something like an experiential learning cycle (download experiential learning flyer (pdf)), learning in which students do something - not just think about something. Minimally this cycle would be something like:

• Context setting: A short explanation on experiential learning and the game; request teams; provide board and rules. (ten minutes)
• Concrete experience: Playing the game (twenty minutes)
• Reflective observations: Asking the teams for what happened and their experiences (ten minutes)
• Generalizations about experiences: Tie-in with “real” world (ten minutes)

The objective given to teams clearly states the whole team needs to get to the end of the obstacle course. So far nearly no teams figured out playing with non-existing individual rules by themselves. Facilitators may perhaps need to introduce this notion as transforming idea with respect to game timing and team energy pressures. Around ten minutes in the game I use sentences like “You seem to be playing against rules in your head”.

Resources

• A room to play in, with enough tables and chairs
• Comfortable in light and temperature
• Feedback questions
• The Rules Of The Game one-pager
• Board of Goose per five players, with 5 pawns and two dice per board
• Sweets/candy
• Flipchart with enough flip chart paper and pens
• Enough playful minds
• One extremely playful multi-team facilitator