As you may have heard, I recently presented a workshop at the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture with a colleague/ friend named Joy Kuebler. Over 20 years of designing public spaces, she developed a fun, unique and effective process of community engagement using the language of play. She calls it PLAYCE!
What I love about it is it's how universal it is. Everyone plays! Even cranky people at public meetings can play!
Although developed as a community engagement tool, the approach is useful for any type of group, or even just applying it to yourself as a problem solving system.
One of her games includes asking 4 Magic Questions. It includes a deck of Insight Cards which prompt your imagination... but I'l share the basic idea:
Given a project or a challenging situation, ask...
- What is holding you/us back?
- If the obstacles were magically removed, what is possible?
- What's it gonna take?
- What partners/resources will you/we need?
I've used this a few times now, both in facilitating groups and for myself, and I have been pleasantly surprised each time with it's simplicity and effectiveness.
Just thought I'd share!
P.S. If this is something that interests you, there's a lot more info here