speaker-0: Hello and welcome to the Serious Games Podcast. All about playful methods for interactive trainings and facilitation. Let's get started. And welcome back to the Serious Games Podcast. Well, today I had to look and I had to scroll quite a lot. 2020 was the last time I had the honor to interview Sabina. And I'm happy that you're back on the podcast, Sabina. So before I introduce yourself or ask you to introduce yourself, First, a a big welcome back to the podcast.

speaker-1: Thank you for having me again. It really has been a while and I'm also shocked six years. Time's flying. my

speaker-0: yeah, time slag, time slide. And I think you know, of course, we do see each other online and sometimes we see each other at the manage agile, and yeah, we just talked about the play for agile and I I'm gonna link all the conferences on the show notes. but today we're here to talk about a new game. actually a game that you developed. I know and I will link the episode 2020. You taught us how to play the commuter game. that's that's always a a lovely thing to bring. But today we're gonna talk about a game that you developed and I really wanna understand why did you develop it and and what was the the the moment where you thought, I need something else. It's not out there yet. So let me just go and develop it. again, I I can now say that you're in Munich. I can say that you are a trained Is is that correct? Yeah, you're tra a trained biochemist, right? And a neuroscience scientist? but but again, you have also an MBA and you are an agile coach and you are independent since yeah, 2019, 2018, 2019. So here are my two traditional questions, okay? What should our listeners know about you? Maybe things that are new since the last time we talked, and how do you explain? The challenge it game to someone who's never heard about it.

speaker-1: So what's what should listeners know about me? First of all, as much as you, I love to create workshops to facilitate workshops that are like an event, that are an experience by themselves. So this is what I do combining serious games and visualizations. And since the last time, what has changed? Of course, I gathered more and more knowledge, more and more methods. And as you said, I developed this new game, and it came as so often as a result of solving a problem. And what was the problem? So the game is not that new. I developed it two years ago, 2024. And back then I had a client, and my clients they wanted to do a so-called big idea workshop, which is something they have done every year. And The first year I used 3D Worlds. So I assume you have a podcast episode on that too. But then they said, like, we want something very inspiring, something new, but not 3D worlds, because we've done that already last year. So I was like, okay, I have an idea in mind. And I want to test it with you. Because maybe you know that feeling from workshops in general that

speaker-0: For sure, for sure.

speaker-1: You are in a situation you've spent the entire workshop day, six, seven hours, and now you're coming to this last final hour, and you have one last agenda point, which is to define action points. And the problem is, I don't know about you, but often people are already so destroyed, so tired. The energy is on a very like on the low, low, low, low, low level, and they The actions that they create are on the level of let's improve our communication. And for me as a facilitator, this was a problem that I observed way before this big idea workshops already. So I had this idea in my mind to create a gameplay that ensures that my participants are coaching each other. To developing good action points. And in this very first workshop, where it prototyped the gameplay and the idea to challenge their big ideas. So it started with a big idea workshop, but the gameplay remained the same. So in this big idea workshop, my clients brainstormed the big ideas, and then they asked coaching questions each other that I adjusted to the topic big idea. And The first run was a big suc success. So I was super surprised. They spent hours and hours and hours without getting tired. Because it wasn't me as a facilitator asking the badass questions, the annoying ones, you know, like how would you feel the difference? Imagine the action was implemented. What will be different? Who will be the first one to observe? You know those questions from facilitating.

speaker-0: Mm.

speaker-0: Hmm.

speaker-1: But at the end of the day, it's and you feel the low energy. If you as a facilitator are the one asking those questions, you're not doing anyone a favor, neither for you nor for the others. Yes. And this was really great to enable them to give them the questions and all the knowledge they need to take over this role because for that they also become more active and also self capable. Of supporting each other.

speaker-0: Wonderful. Wonderful. So in in this big idea of let them do the work, right? And let them realize. But then also what what you said earlier, I think everyone has been there, right? At the very end. Do some sticky notes, how we're gonna make ensure it survives on Monday and then it's like, yeah, let's write down something very generic, something that I don't really have to commit to. And hey, it's for the trainer anyway and the facilitator, so they don't know, they're not gonna be here anyway, and then it somehow dies on the way out. And yeah, enabling to enabling your participants to flesh out those those action plans and and to to think big, but then also to coach. And I think I I would love to learn even more in in a couple of you know in the next hour or so, how this you know questioning, challenging my colleague rather than being challenged by someone else. also can can help them to you know build that that that muscle of hey we could also do this during our next meeting we could also do this along the way we don't have to end these questions just because the workshop or the session ends and and I think that's sometimes also a good thing to do. Yeah. Cool. So the Bay workshop. Great. I I would just love to jump right in, right? So you already mentioned when and how you would use it or what what would the challenge be that that you would think of? now I wanna do challenge it. what do you need to prepare? So let's let's just start from the very, very beginning. What do you need to take? I are there any materials and yeah, how do you group the room and and you know, give us a little bit of an idea of the logistics, maybe. Do this with five people or with five hundred. so how does it How does it start in your in your design?

speaker-1: So it is a board game. And I like I professionally printed everything. So there's professional material with a card deck. And this card deck, so after prototyping it in this big idea workshop, I was aware that the gameplay works, but I also had some very interesting insights like the group size that you just mentioned. More than eight does not work. Like if it's more than eight people, Then they start disengaging. So eight is currently the limit. Of course, there are exceptions. If you have very including groups and teams, you can increase that. But because of that experience in this very first big idea workshop, I limited the amount of participants to eight. And if there are bigger groups, I just use multiple decks.

speaker-0: Okay, and then multiple like table groups, so they could be five to eight people in one group and then you have multiple you can have ten of those and then you just Okay, got ya.

speaker-1: And it works also with multiple tables. I've done it on multiple conferences. I also have done it on leadership and leadership workshops where we're defining goals and having like six tables in parallel. It works. And what I've done after also having this insights that in general the gameplay works, I created a deck only focused not on big ideas, but on actions. So as you said, like the goal is to develop good, sustainable action points with an higher Probability of implementation. And I am not the devil's advocate as a facilitator, but the team members are, and they know each other. They know exactly where the problems might be. Like imagine you, Julian, taking over the task, and someone will be like, No, no, no, you have the fullest to-do list. I am not confident that this action will be implemented, but if we change the name of the person, I am more confident. And for that This was a very nice community event. I went to the Play for Agile that you mentioned before. And I had the week after the Play for Agile, I had another workshop where I wanted to use Challenge It, but I still had the old card deck for big ideas, so I needed a new card deck for actions. And so this is the fun thing about Challenge It, because the actions that are used in the game, and I will explain the gameplay in a second. are created by other coaches from the community. Other facilitators, serious game facilitators. And this is quite nice because it's like pure wisdom.

speaker-0: Absolutely. I I was just about to say, right? You you're not only inviting the wisdom of your participants, actually stuff that we as facilitators most likely do not know anyway, because they know their day-to-day better. And day to day might change from the briefing to the session to the implementation. but also you're using the coaches and yeah, play for agile is for sure a place where you can you know, meet a lot of experienced and and very curious and very playful facilitators. so you also used their wisdom in crafting smart coaching questions, right? Smart questions that that that help to unlock more. Well whatever that means, yeah. Cool.

speaker-1: And as you said, so we have tables with up to eight people. Theoretically, a minimum of two also works. You can also play it by yourself. Absolutely fine. And then everyone, every table, like when I introduce it, I don't put the board first. But what I give first, what I hand out the first to the participants are action cards. And those action cards, what do they contain? Like on the front side, it's just written action, but on the back side, they can write down The topic. Like if we have in the end of the workshop multiple topics, let's say like globalization, digitalization for strategy, whatsoever, team building, communication, you write down a general topic if there is one, this author. Then you write down the author, the person who has written down the action point. And also if we have multiple actions per person, I let them write down a priority. So we can make sure if the time if we run out of time, that at least all the actions with priority number one.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: Are finished. Okay. So I have like different card decks. Priority one, when we finish priority one, we go to two, and so on and so forth. And then they write down an action. Let's say we improve our communication as an action point. Because it's easy to remember and it's super superficial and we no one likes that action point. But it really gets to the point of my problem. And so we create a card deck. Everyone has

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: created at least one action point, maybe even multiple action points, we shuffle them so that we have a randomization and we don't know which one will be chosen first. And through that we have a bit of gamification. I don't know, loud person in the group. Yes. But it's randomized. And what we do then is

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-0: Okay. Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: This is when I introduce the board. And on the board, you don't have much. You just have like this is still an old board that I'm currently showing here, but you have basically the action cards that you put here, and then you have a scale from one to ten. And we open the first action card, and then everyone is consulting the gut feeling, and they take little Cute hipster figurines of donuts and avocados and unicorns and whatever I put in there. Okay. And what you do with the scale is basically you express your gut feeling. How confident am I that this action point will be implemented with all the knowledge I have about the person, about the organization, about past experiences. It's like very complex.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: Like the the you can change the outcome by how you frame the question, but usually I say like put in all your gut feeling and then we visualize it. And upon visualizing my gut feeling, they get the solution cards or coaching cards, however you want to call them that I co created with the coaches from Play for Agile. And everyone gets free of those cards and put them in front of them. It's open.

speaker-0: Mm.

speaker-1: They openly put those cards in front of them so it's visible for everyone. And this is like very similar to Fearless Journey, the gameplay, where you choose the card where you think that this makes the biggest difference either for yourself or for someone else. And this one card you push to the front. And once everyone has pushed the card to the front that might help yourself or someone else to move up the scale, we read the cards in a circle.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: So we make sure that everyone speaks before we get into discussion to increase the probability that even the more silent participants participate in the conversation.

speaker-0: So no one no one answers the question after it's ask. You just let it sink in and Yes. Okay. Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: You just get into a feeling like you listen to the question and you look where you put your figurine before and you ask yourself, does this make a difference for me? Would this help me the answer to that question to move, to to move up the scale? And once you've heard all the questions, we start a discussion, which is like, okay, what would help me to move up?

speaker-0: But then you're not answering in terms of which question would help me, but what would I really need to be more confident or to challenge my gut feeling or to validate or falsify my gut feeling in terms of, all right, if I would know this information, then I could probably say, now it's a nine and not a seven or so, right? Or okay. And is is that like a like a

speaker-1: Exactly.

speaker-0: I mean who who gets to speak here? I mean e everyone, right? because I placed my my little token. Okay. And mm-hmm. Yeah, just what goes through a little bit this conversation that then is started and it's sparked because at the moment I feel like, yeah, then I could have this wish list of, yeah, and if the big boss would say, and if we have budget and if we would finally get to fly to Spain to meet our counterparts in person. Then of course it will be way more likely. what type of conversations a d are you observing and and what are you aiming for? So

speaker-1: Yes. So the goal is to get everyone by the end of one round in the green area of the field. So that everyone is on the scale between eight and ten. Yes, it's just because there's no perfection and some people are like, Yeah, yeah. We want it good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect. Yes. And what is also nice, you're not only responsible for your rating and your figurine and where you place it, but you're responsible to bring the entire team to the green area.

speaker-0: Eight and ten, okay.

speaker-1: So what I had in the past were some people like, you have I'm out of this discussion, I'm already in the green area, why should I participate? No, no, no. The j the game just started. You're also responsible to help each other to get into the green area. And the discussions that you get, it's of course you can make a random wish list, but it's about reality check. Like how confident am I that this will be implemented? And it's also a bit like this question that you have with fearless journey, like

speaker-0: Yes, yes.

speaker-1: What is in my circle of control, what is maybe out of my circle of control, and where I can actually talk to someone to support me, which can be an action. And what you do, like the person who owns the card, the author of the card, is writing down improvements of the action. And whenever someone is moving the figuring up, like, this would help me, then you have to put it into words. Because it's not about just As I said, the example was we improve our communication. It's not about the intention that is behind. It might be a good intention, but it should be an action that is understandable for everyone and where everyone feels also confident with. So we try to talk about through expressing our gut feelings, we try to level the different informations that there are on the table. Because usually people have different assumptions, they have different knowledge, and through visualizing the gut feeling. And for creating this artificial tension, it is an artificial tension that we're creating, we allow ourselves to have the right conversations, to share real information and knowledge, to level that and to get to a good action in general.

speaker-0: Yes, gotcha, gotcha. Because yeah, and and I wanna plus this you know, artificial tension because normally there's a little bit of a friction of attention connected to what is important to me. It's like, this will never work because I talk to this person and then yeah, you have an information that you have not shared, maybe, right? Or you have an experience that I I wasn't aware of. Great, how can we make this an improvement step rather than just a blocker? Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Lovely. So that's literally the conversation about one action point, right? I'm I'm now thinking there's this little stack of I don't know, eight people, twenty actions. how how long does that take? I mean, this this this tension tensionizing is I don't know if that's a word. This tensionizing, then the coaching questions, then the conversation, and then extracting the improvements. And then revalidating if someone wants to move their token to the green area. What what are your experiences here?

speaker-1: So the first round is the longest one. The first round, it doesn't matter if it's a team where they know each other already or if it's a random group of people. The first round is the most demanding one and the longest one. And you as a facilitator have to be the most present. Because they want to skip steps. Some people don't want to use the coaching cards. And then I'm like, no, if you don't need it for yourself, but maybe it might be useful for someone else. So you're supporting the other team members. And then they're like, yeah, okay, that's that I understand, whatever.

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: And so this is the longest round and I've created like thanks to feedback from conferences also a visual guide through the different steps and so try to make it as easy as possible for the participants. I also reduced like the number of of coaching cards from five to three to make it a bit more easy. And let's say the first round takes twenty minutes, the first card. But after that it's speeding up tremendously. Like the speed increases with every round because then they start to understand what is important for my peers. And sometimes what happens is someone turns around the next card and sees, that's my card. this is what I wrote down. Let me correct it first before we start a conversation. Because then they realize themselves what they have written down is such a poor quality of an action point that they start correcting it immediately.

speaker-0: Okay, so it doesn't does not only i or let me rephrase that, it it it increases the likelihood of of surviving of being implemented by also phrasing and framing it in a better way, plus those collecting from the wise crowd in the room, or from my table group, those improvement ideas. actually it's more than an improvement idea, right? Because they're they're really saying, no, hold on, if I get this, then it will move the needle. Right? So it's it's more than just an idea of, hey, why don't we do XYZ? And that costs more money and more time and more resources in general, and it's more work. but no, here's you really saying, look, if this person commits or if if if we all do XYZ, if we finally have that board, if we move to whatever. tool out there or method or if we, you know, do then it will move the needle, right? You're you're it's like a micro commitment at that moment, right?

speaker-1: It is. It is. And the the nice part is and I think this is why the gameplay works so well. Cause people the people who write down their actions, this is the action according to them that makes the biggest difference. And as you said, sometimes it can be 20 cards, but then we cannot do it in an hour. So if it's like the end of a workshop, I limit it to one card per person so that we can make sure that we finish everything in time. Or two people create one action point together, which can also reduce the time you need for getting through everything. But you can also do the gameplay for an entire afternoon. I've done that, for example, when we were developing goals, strategic goals for OKR objectives and Q results. So you can use it, for example, also for OKR. And the thing is that people are taking the actions more serious because others are also listening more actively to them. So the commitment is higher because the idea that I'm sharing in my team in this group. Is taken seriously. People spend time and not just like two minutes, yeah, it sounds good. But they're really getting into what was the intention behind, how can we put it into words that everyone gets it? Maybe I have information that the person, the author, him or herself didn't have that I could share. And we are all co-creating the task and the ownership. Of course, the the author kind of still has the ownership, the idea, the initial idea, but everyone feels more responsible. And that's the very cool part that I've also experienced multiple times that suddenly, especially in an organization, when you do it, for example, with a leadership team and everyone is leading a different department, if you play this game only once every three months for OKR, for example, they start getting a better big picture of what's happening in the organization because they have deeper conversations about everyone's area of responsibility.

speaker-0: Mm. Yes, and I would love to I know you're you're holding the cards in in the camera, but I could also add some pictures to the chapter marks. So if your podcast player supports that, look at it now. But then I will I will also link the the you know the website and everything so that we can get a get a good good feeling. Or can could you read a few it doesn't have to be your favorite, but maybe just that we get a flavor of what type of Coaching questions yeah you were referring to

speaker-1: Yes. So here's one. imagine this workshop or meeting, because you can also w use it for meetings, is over and you meet your colleagues for coffee. What will you tell them about this action? Like the classic, you know, when you leave the room and then the truth comes out. Or how would you explain the action to your grandparents? Would they understand it? That's a question from Bernd and Christian. From the Play for Agile. Or we have also step by step describe the implementation of this action step by step. It's simple coaching questions. It's not like rocket science for us who we are coaches. But the interesting thing is if you play this game a few times, they start asking those questions themselves in day to day life. So it's educational as well.

speaker-0: Yes, yes.

speaker-0: Yes, yes, absolutely. And I was just about to say, I mean, of course, a question is super powerful. Especially I like that twist that you do not have to answer right away. so you use the the the the question as a stepstone or as an inspir spark of inspiration rather than something that you now need to answer because I'm gonna talk to your grandma tomorrow. th that that's one thing and I I I know you said it, but in my words, I I I love that it brings back you mentioned the co-creation and you know, everyone should move into eight, nine, ten, to to have this collective commitment. But I love that it brings back this idea that hey, why are we grouped as a department anyway? Or why are we a team if we are a team? Hey, we're here to tackle stuff together. So I normally, you know, when I work with teams, I I tell them, well, look, if the if there's a let's say something that stresses individuals out, come on guys, you're you're a team, right? Why don't we solve this together, right? Maybe there's the work needs to be organized differently. Maybe there's there's other things that that need, you know, realignment, redesign. and and I love that that it brings that back. And there was one more thing, Because now you just mentioned like, the first round is twenty minutes, right? Hey, you're making time deliberately for action planning, right? So it's it's it will not be ever again this, wait a minute, I need something great for my you know, documentation, to feed AI or some, you know, I don't know, reporting sheet. so we're gonna make time. We have to make time, and only if we understood, I would say as good as we understood the problem, if we underst Then the s the possible solutions or the experiments that we're doing, depending on what what the action is is tackling, then yeah, we increase the likelihood that it will survive Monday. cool. That is lovely. Wow.

speaker-1: I like your formulation of we increase the likelihood of it surviving Monday because this is it's it's the routine that kills Yes so the the great ideas that are generated in the workshop and then you spend like hours, six, seven hours for very uninspiring action points in the end. And this game, the serious game, is my my try. And it's not only a try, it really works. I played it now the last two years so often and others played it too.

speaker-0: For sure. Yeah.

speaker-1: And it really works because all the participants are engaged and they are put into the position of an expert. And we love to solve problems. And here we are invited through a gameplay to support each other. And it's through this gameplay, through through this gamification, we allow each other to give feedback and it's taken without any criticism. So in all the facilitations that I have had so far, no one has ever taken. Any, at least not that I've seen it or that anyone has mentioned it, has never taken any improvement personally, but it was always like, great, great idea. Yes, I should incorporate that. that's good. I've not thought that way. And this is just what I love, like the energy. And sometimes it's like, okay, you've spent now three hours with that, of course, with breaks in between. Sure. We're done with the workshop. And they stare at and like, what? Time's over? When? How?

speaker-0: Lovely, lovely. And then also my experience is that that you know when you when you spend that great time in a workshop and it what we all know it might have a lovely design and a grown zone and a divergent and convergent moment. And then it's not just that the air might be out or it might be very inspiring and the energy might be high. But then also action planning feels like, my God, now there's work coming along my way, right? And and and now, but I already have 110% to do. How can I now take even more out of this workshop, right? So the improvements I I could you know, I'm just imagining now. the improvements could also be, how do I get this done in this in spite of my busy day-to-day, right? cool. And there's one more thing, Sabina, I heard you say. at the very beginning, when you asked for that, you know, that gut feeling question, when you said, Well, look, of course, depending on how you ask the question, how you frame it, you can change the outcome, right? And and I think that that's why your good questions, coaching questions, good open questions, inspiring questions, you know, can I say

speaker-0: Is it leaving the frame or or giving the agency to the owner of that action point to let them frame it, right? And and to put the question and whatever is inspired by that into their frame rather than saying, No, no, no, no, we need to think about this differently and no, we need to tackle you know, what what could go wrong first or the fears or we could, you know, but but here's really the improvements. Cool. Wow. Wow. So twenty minutes and then you have another stack of seven, eight, nine actions, which makes the next rounds more like a ten minute thing, or I mean

speaker-1: Faster, it's getting really faster and faster from action point, like 10 minutes. Sometimes it's even done after seven, eight minutes. What I've also implemented, I bought some little mechanic clocks that's like the ones for the kitchen, kitchen clocks. I'm telling, like, if you want, and this is optional, you can estimate how much time you will need for the next action to improve it. You can set a timer and try to beat the clock.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yes, mm-hmm.

speaker-1: But this is optional. Some groups are like, yes, more challenge. They love it. Others are more into no stress needed. It's already too much. So I leave it as an optional thing. And yeah. But for this you can also increase the speed. And as I said, it depends on what the intention is and if they have previous experience. Like if I play this a second or third time with the same group. The speed is way higher. They take it with way more ease. They're of course they ask like what was the gameplay again? And I explain it again. But after that they're super chilled. They see the value and they are they they need but still the first round is the longest one because they need to adapt to each other.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Okay, gotcha. Now you mentioned that it is educational in terms of, hey, we co-create our solutions, or let's say we co-create our improvements and we we tap into, you know, the the the the group knowledge at this very moment and at this very point. Is there any type of let's say debriefing of what just happened in terms of the quality of the actions or other stories that happened in the room. how how do you deal with that, with that moment of, now I have a better fleshed out action plan? yeah, can you can you tell us how you wrap it up besides the action plan itself?

speaker-1: So when it's of course in conferences, I do a debrief because then it's about what was the game experience for you. And this is always, yeah, they they just see the value of well, we're having deeper conversations, et cetera, et cetera. So that's one thing that we have a long debrief. But what I do at the end of facilitations within companies, within teams, is that I also ask like what was the difference for you for designing and creating the actions in that way and for Yeah, we're challenging each other. And so far the feedback was always also positive because as I said, they forget the time because they are involved, they are having the the lead on co-creating those actions. And my clients, they ask me now throughout the last two years to reuse the very same method. Just so they're not getting tired of it, which is also nice because some methods you use them once, twice, three times, and then they People feel like, okay, this is not it. But because the the action points are every time different. It's something that is very important to them and very personally has a big personal value, it stays relevant and they are enjoying it over and over and over again. And yeah. So I think the the fact that they want to redo it, that they Specifically asked for using the very same serious game the next time is the best feedback you can get.

speaker-0: Yes, yes. And I have to say, of course, in the yeah, design, I don't know, like ninety-eight percent of the content that they bring is their content, right? So so it's literally their it's like, you know, that's like a bucket and they fill in their content, their challenges, their their actions and improvements, etc. And they're talking to each other. That said, when you say, yeah, other methods they wear off a little bit. I truly believe that this is our job as facilitators to really make sure that, hey, wait a minute, it's never about the method, right? I'm not using a method because I love the method. I might love some methods, but you know, that might not be the right method for whatever whatever I'm gonna so wanna solve or or invite to. So I truly believe that every method out there can and should be and even must be tailored. to the audience and that that's content wise, that's as you mentioned, you know, with the maybe game mechanics here and there, for sure, how you frame it. yes. And that can also, you know, bring out a different interaction with the method, with the peers, the colleagues, the participants, and so on.

speaker-1: I think this is like the difference between serious games and serious games, so to say. There are some serious games that are just like selling a principle, and then there are others that are basically transporting content that comes from the organization. The 3D worlds are another method for that or feelless journey. They give you they take your problem, put it in the center of it, and the method itself or the serious game is just helping to make it a bit more. easier to to communicate, to talk about the right things. It's basically shaping the way of communication. But the main topic is not to sell a principle, but instead it's really about solving an existing issue in your organization.

speaker-0: Yes, yes. Which I mean, the recording is still on, which I think every workshop should do, right? I mean it's like why would we mean to I mean again, yeah, I'd love to challenge us facilitators. cool, cool, cool. So, okay, then you have the action plan. You again they're they're fleshed out. The cards, I'll put a picture in in the yeah, show notes and in the chapter marks. Let's talk about how and where to use this. Can you do this online with remote teams? Is is that is that possible?

speaker-1: So it is possible I've done it on Miro, but what I've not done yet, and ideally it will be done by the time you publish this podcast, is to create some sort of online version that is also available for others. Because currently there's the printed version, which is as we order it just in small batches, quite expensive with 199 euros. Because we have someone also doing the whole packaging and everything for us. It's outsourced. And but it's it's the goal already for the last two years, but now I will finally do it to create an online version so people can use it also online. It's the gameplay works. It's the same issue that you just have with mixing cards on all whiteboard tools that you have to play around, to work around by just clicking randomly on them and pushing them to the front, to the back and then stack them together. But it works in general. And this is like the only challenging part, but Yeah, so by the time you're publishing this podcast there will be some sort of online version of A.

speaker-0: Wonderful. I'll make sure not to publish it tomorrow.

speaker-1: That's good. If you want to publish it tomorrow, I'll have it by tomorrow. No worries, no worries. I just need deadlines.

speaker-0: Bring me to actually I I forgot to ask one question. This so you have the the coaching questions going back to that moment where we all read the question and you just select one, you push it up. For the next action card, I would get new coaching questions. Is is or or do I just fill up the one that I pushed up? or do you completely reshuffle all of them? That's one question I had.

speaker-1: Initially, the idea was, and I took it from Fearless Journey to just replace the one that you've used. What reality showed me is that people are very sad if they have the same coaching cards for multiple rounds, and they'd really become very sad. So my new day go-to approach, and it's not individual instructions yet, but for those listening to the podcast, they can do it that way. Is just to tell them that with each round, they put all the cards together, they shuffle them and they redistribute free randomly new maybe one or the other is the same but coaching cards and this makes people more happy and we want to have happy participants because in the end it doesn't matter. They don't have to use yes exactly those coaching cards. They just have to highlight the one that is the most likely one to make a difference for someone. But after that, if something else helps them to move up the scale, I don't care. They can use all their creativity. It's just about to break the pattern of your own thinking to get into this coach mode and to kind of educate the participants to ideally use that type of questions also in in their day to day life.

speaker-0: Wonderful. Cool. Cool. And I'm I'm already looking at my final questions here, but but I just wanna you know, tap into your your wisdom and maybe some hacks. So yeah, I mean you you mentioned that initially, th that that moment where we're running out of energy, maybe even out of time, and then we're doing the action plan and everyone leaves a sticky and then it's really not committed and there are no names on that action plan and Even though it's more like, okay, ev does everyone have something? So that we can all go out and say, Yeah, I also took an action. I is there a way that when you know that you're gonna use the challenge it method game, is there a way that maybe even throughout the workshop, whatever happens before, that you already kind of like infuse that idea of okay, this is not going to be yet another workshop where you leave with two stickies and you can sneak out? Is there a way what trying to ask is how do you make su how do you weave it in early or or do you have to weave it in early so that it becomes even more I I don't know natural I'm just lacking couple words here, but that it becomes more a f that it's part of the flow.

speaker-1: Actually you don't have to because you can use it for example at the end of a retrospective and then you don't know what will be the outcome of the retrospective. So you have to work with whatever comes out. And then they decide decide what the topics will be and you can just surprise them with that part. You just have to have, especially when you do it the first time, a bit more time. I would never do that under time pressure in general. New methods never under time pressure. Give yourself a bit space. And like what you can do What I did, for example, with some of the leaderships teams is that they prepared goals as actions, like what they want to achieve in the next quarter for their OKRs. And then they come already with pre-prepared goals. So the action is already prepared, they just have to copy it on the card, and then we start with the gameplay. This also works very very well if the entire purpose of the workshop. is to create good actions or good goals. I also already created for some of my clients like customized boards for OKR where I also changed the design of the board where we had objectives and queue results and we were kind of first challenging the objective, then the queue results, and then we were also mixing and matching different queue results to see what is actually the best for paying into the objective. Do we have to rephrase the objective now looking at the queue results? But also again with the same gameplay of visualizing your gut feeling and this works also perfectly. And yeah, so it depends. You can kind of and I also adjusted it a few times and a few times I announced it previously. But in general, you don't have to change your workshop design because of this game. When you have any slot, any agenda point of we are defining action points, you can put it in. Just make sure to give a bit more time. Yes for sure. writing down action points in ten minutes like unfortunately many people do and the quality speaks for itself. But it's really about creating high quality action points and like one hour is a good time slot, but you can even extend it to one and a half or even two hours, depending on of course the dynamics of the group. And if I also like I don't push it to the max. If I have, for example, eight participants, I prefer to make two tables of th of four.

speaker-0: As well.

speaker-1: 'Cause then the conversations are deeper, the engagement is higher and in the end they can share what actions they had and the quality is still way higher than compared to if everyone would have just done it for him or herself.

speaker-0: Okay. And is there any especially when when you work with larger groups, but I'm also thinking even if you have one table group, what happens to the actions that that we weren't able to work on, right? Because maybe time ran out or we we tackled one big one and we love, you know, all the improvements and that maybe even inspired even more actions. how how do you deal or document or or rescue all the other ideas?

speaker-1: I am not a fan of making a thousand action points because the organization and the team has to have capacity for the action points that were defined. And often the reason why things are forgotten on Monday is that the organization is already above full capacity and they don't have time to think about the actions. They don't have capacity to implement them. And so this is also why always an important question, and if you have time, you should ask it. How realistic is it that we have the capacity to implement all of that? And the question is I I prefer to let go of whatever has not been discussed. If it's important, it will pop up to a next opportunity. And if someone says this is a very important action, then this person will make sure that it will be discussed afterwards. And I'm also like if it happened once that they were like, we have two, three more actions that we would like to use to actually develop with this gameplay. And they got one set and they were like, This was so good, we want to have one set for our organization and they continued using it afterwards. Gotcha. So I'm I really don't think that especially nowadays where we are flooded with information, we have to save every little piece of information. If this is truly an original action, the person will fight for it. But me as a facilitator, this is why I usually also try to be like, Okay, one action point per person is the max. Just because usually we're not sitting there and waiting for work. We are already at our limit. And the question is what will we stop doing to get the capacity for doing this? And this is ideally also something that should go into the gut feeling. Be like, Julian, you want to do this action? Actually, I'm only getting into the green area if you let go of this other project or this other task. Because currently I don't see you do any additional action. You're just in survival mode at work.

speaker-0: Got you, got you. Actually, was now thinking of a variation like maybe I'll name it like remove it, right? Where you literally write down actions that you want to stop doing and then you you challenge your colleagues of why they should keep it or why they should for sure remove it and maybe it you know it's it will trigger some other improvements or changes somewhere else. But maybe this can free up more time than it cost. Okay, cool. Wow, wow. Do you have any unique or special experience with your game?

speaker-1: So I think the most special experience was once when I did it was a workshop about goal setting and it was a team, a leadership team, and another consultancy company said like, my god, you want to do a leadership, a goal setting workshop with them. We've done that, it failed. Don't do it. Don't do a big group workshop with them. And I was like, I don't know them. I will try, I'll do it differently, don't worry. So went there and they were all a bit reserved, like very suspicious. We didn't know each other much. And I arrived there and then we started to use their pre-prepared goals and to combine it with the game. And we did three hours of gameplay in the morning, then lunch break, and then another three hours in the afternoon. And at the end of the day, they were like, Okay, we are exhausted, as you announced, because I said they will be exhausted after my workshop. But we have been so productive. Yeah. And ever since, so we're still working together. Whenever we have a workshop, and I'm I'm adapting, I'm using different tools and using different methods every time. But suddenly they opened up. They're way more open in general for facilitation, and they're not that much afraid anymore of demanding tasks because through this gamification, it felt so much easier.

speaker-0: Thank you.

speaker-0: Mm.

speaker-1: So much fun was involved. They loved so much in between. And this was really nice.

speaker-0: Cool. That sounds lovely. That sounds lovely. So can you name the secret sauce of challenge it in in a few sentences? why does it work the way it works?

speaker-1: Challenge It works. So in Challenge It, the participants are improving their actions after a workshop. And it works because they take over responsibility not only for their own actions, but for everyone's actions. And they are coaching each other and showing true interest into each other's actions so that the likelihood of implementation is increased. And this is why it works.

speaker-0: Cool. Lovely, lovely. And as I also asked you six years ago, what is your ultimate facilitation tip? So it doesn't have to be only for challenge it, but just in general. I mean, just yeah, one something that you want to share with our listeners.

speaker-1: My ultimate facilitation tip that I discovered lately is to really show to be confident that together with your participants with the group you will find a good outcome. And not to stick to your plan, but to read the room constantly and to be confident that the wisdom is in the room. I quite often start workshops with I don't know what the outcome will be, but I'm confident that it will be good. And I'm just showing and being present with this confidence, and this helps the participants to calm down their nervous system, to be more present themselves, to rely on my confidence. And we are creating the most awesome outcomes just off being confident without knowing what the outcome will be.

speaker-0: Mm.

speaker-0: Wonderful, wonderful. And again, it's always good to have a little method, a little bit of preparation, a little bit of an idea what could happen next on that journey. And wow. So now I feel that I should publish the podcast tomorrow so that more and more people get to know challenge it. And you mentioned so that this is again a material box that it comes with with the with the board and the questions and the cards. I I'll link the The shop or the website or is that yeah, okay, wonderful.

speaker-1: We have a shop. There's an English and German version of the printed one available. And I will create the online versions of it. I don't know how it will look like, but there will be something by the time you publish the podcast. And yeah, so delivery is in Germany, Europe, not Switzerland. We found out this is too complicated for our little hobby shop, so to say. And yeah. Feel free to reach out if there's something like the listeners, if there's something that you need that is not on the shop or you cannot find it, or maybe if one day the shop doesn't exist, just reach out. It's it's a one piece ordering. We're not ordering in the in big amounts because it's just like a small shop that we have. Yes. so also if you have some cute cool ideas on how to customize it, just reach out.

speaker-0: Wonderful.

speaker-0: Wonderful, wonderful. I'll put your and your your colleagues contacts, yes, and LinkedIn profiles in the show notes and the company and the shop and and all the things that we mentioned, the conference and the other game, the fearless journey and I made so many notes. Thank you so much for coming back and let's make sure that the next conversation will not be on our calendars only in six years, but much sooner than that. Thanks, Shark. Wonderful. Well thanks for sharing, Sabina. And to all our listeners. wow, this feels like another episode with a long list of show notes that you can click through, that you can look up, that you can, you know, again, as Sabina said, reach out to her

speaker-1: Yes, definitely.

speaker-0: Reach out to me if there's anything that you're missing, lacking, or feel inspired by. We want to hear from you. Until next time, bye-bye. You can reach us at hello at kearning.net. We're looking forward to your suggestions, comments, and feedback.