We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming. — Don Delillo

The rules of this Game of Goose version have been changed to get rid of limiting beliefs about our capacity to work together as a team. The game is open source. If you wish to facilitate it in your local context, feel free to do so.

* Duration: 3 hours
* Type: Experiential learning cycle
* Minimum number of participants: 10
* Maximum number of participants: 60 – 120 (depending on number of facilitators available)

Open Source

This game is open source. Feel free to adopt/adapt/use respecting the creative commons by-sa 3.0 license.

For boards you can contact toy companies Ravensburger, Selecta or Jumbo International. In the US the Jumbo International version was/is sold through Toys “R” Us.

Below more background, requirements and suggested resources.

Mehen

The oldest spiral Game of Life we know, Mehen, was reported found in Egyptian Old Kingdom graves dating as far back as 5000 BP. This form of game seems to have spread over Europe in the 16th century.

Spiral games of life seem to have in common that they have 63 (7 times 9) fields, obstacles and surprises are placed at 6, 19, 31, 42, 52 and 58, and the spiral goes inward counterclockwise, mirroring the possible dangers, coincidences, happy occasions, progress, hitches and certain death affecting human life (and businesses, teams, our contextually non fitting opinions, assumptions, belief systems, and world views, whole cultures, species, planets, stars, … in short, systems .

Purpose of game

This Game of Goose, an old Mehen 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 systems that wish to steer and anticipate change.

Embedded process

This game must be embedded in something like an experiential learning cycle, learning in which people 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”.

Suggested 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

Suggested feedback questions

What were the key elements of the game for you?
Which parts came through very clearly for you?
Which parts were unclear?

What did you like, or not like, about the game?
Where did your team struggle most?
Where did you have breakthroughs and/or new insights?

Has the game been fun?
Did it meet your expectations? If so, how has it met your expectations?
How will you be applying what rule changes you made?

What follow up is likely to help you apply effectively what you have learned?
Who else, do you think, could benefit from playing this game too?

And by all means, if you facilitate/play the game, share some of your learnings with us? Grant us some feedback!

Contemporary history

In contemporary times, the games first public run at a Dutch local Chamber of Commerce meeting of more than 100 people, it was embedded in a 3 hour session wedged comfortably between a goal (re)writing exercise of by participants themselves brought goal statements and a hilarious video on human and team stuff. Later runs drew also from otherwise gathered data, like at US Consultants Camp in 2003, facilitating with Philip Thunder Panther Trice, where a nature walk was used to gather noticeable keys.

Current versions (2009) are all focused on rewriting rules for improving collaboration