JUNKYARD GAMES
Junkyard Games is an innovation training game for employee and management development training.
The team activity is an engaging and interactive experiential instructional game that effectively improves the effectiveness of team and individual innovation skills.
The Outrageously Fun Innovation Simulation
Doing more for less, increasing productivity and reducing costs, innovation is the lifeblood of all successful organisations. Without it, organisations may survive, but they seldom thrive. The fact of the matter is that anyone can be innovative, regardless of profession or level of responsibility. The opportunity for process improvement exists everywhere and at every level within an organisation. Everybody’s innovating, but often it isn’t formally recognised as “process improvement” or “innovation”.
Now there is a way to encourage innovation and develop the skills needed to have a positive impact on organisational performance. Junkyard Games is an exciting new training game that combines energy and fun with creativity and process improvement. Teams work together, plan, strategise, and execute their ideas to create the most innovative table top games for an international competition among imaginary countries.
The challenge is that they may only use the miscellaneous “junk” available to them. The parts are random, and not every team is given the same stuff. After an initial round of planning and testing, teams are asked to practice their innovation skills to improve upon their original design. Then the outrageous fun begins when the teams get to play each other’s games and compete to win at all costs!
Learning Outcomes
- Differentiate between innovation and creativity
- Understand the value of managing task-driven and process-driven behaviours
- Learn and apply a 7-step innovation process
Uses for the Game: Junkyard Games is effective either as a stand-alone activity or as part of a more comprehensive training programme. Here are some suggested applications for the game:
- Kick off a team-building workshop or seminar
- Introduce the concept of innovation
- Energise an existing team’s level of creativity for innovation
- Practice using innovation skills in a “safe” environment
How It Works: Using only the miscellaneous “junk” available to them, teams compete to create the most innovative table-top sporting event for an international competition. After an initial round of planning, teams are challenged to practice innovation on their initial game designs. Things get really interesting when teams have fun playing each other’s games. Following game play, additional learning takes place as teams give honest feedback on each of the game designs and how well they met the stated objectives and goals.
Time Required: 1½ – 2 hours