The Next Level of ‘Games at Work’
In the midst of 2020, a group of friends and I got together to create a board game company called Amble Studio.
At Amble Studio, we are a novel new business exploring the boundaries between collaboration and ways of working, and games. We walk the line and peer over both sides, wondering how fruitful the wall is at all.
One way Amble is exploring this space is through the creation of the Amble RPG. And it’s very exciting!
Many of us are familiar with the charters and processes that exist in our own workplaces that form and guide companies and help them grow. But what if these documents were framed as games? That’s what Amble RPG is.
Humans love play, we always have. Play fosters connection (also crucial to humans), and it’s just plain fun! But it’s often seen as something unprofessional, something to be kept out of the workplace. It’s something you get in trouble for doing at work, only ever acceptable after work is done.
And yet, games are engaging, get people invested and create strong memories. These are all things we want to see happening at our jobs too!
Games draw people in with the promise of an enjoyable experience, an opportunity to connect with others and the chance to think in a new way. Imagine if people were able to see their work this way! What if people found more aspects of work genuinely enjoyable, and as opportunities to connect and grow their thinking? How much would that change the culture of your workplace?
And what if folks were deeply invested in not only their own individual workspace, but the workplace as a whole? Or if they created strong, positive memories at work that solidified the practices and processes they need to internalise to see the workplace as a whole flourish? How much would that change the culture of your workplace?
With that tantalising thought in mind, let us continue.
There are games that are designed with the explicit purpose of supporting a workplace (sometimes called ‘Serious Games’). They come in many forms and have many purposes, including the possibility for creating a container for nurturing the kind of environment and culture that helps great work happen.
Amble RPG is our most unique game in this space. As the name suggests, it’s just for us, the Amble Troupe. But as we design and create Amble RPG, we are learning a lot about various frames and lenses through which to look at typical workplace processes that then transform them. What we learn could well be applied to other workplaces as we investigate their unique contexts.
Amble RPG is made of many moving and interwoven parts, just like Amble itself. People and work are complex and ever-changing landscapes, so Amble RPG is also complex and continually evolving.
Let’s look at an example. Many workplaces have regular processes by which they stop and reflect on the past month/quarter/year, and then look ahead to the future and what needs to be done differently. This process may include looking at data, graphs, personal goals and more. These topics can often be dense and not fun.
So, what if this process was not a meeting or conference call, but a game?
At Amble we have a small weekly game-process in this vein called ‘Night Sky’, and a larger, more in-depth, monthly game-process called ‘New Moon’.
In the ‘Night Sky’ game, we each reflect on the work and other activities each of us has done over the past week. We recognise any activity that has contributed to the growth and flourishing of Amble as a whole, as well as individual Amble members. The Amble Troupe consciously brings our whole selves to work, and acknowledge our whole selves for contributing. What that might look like is acknowledging a colleague for awesome web content as well as bowing out of a meeting early to take care of a family member. These acknowledgements are collected as ‘stars’ in a place where everyone can see them, called the Night Sky. Our Night Sky game is always enjoyable and uplifting.
‘New Moon’ is our larger reflection game, where we look at the work we have done over the past month and how it aligns with what matters to us. Together, we collect the ‘stars’ of our accomplishments and cluster them around the areas of our working and being together that are important to us. We are then able to pause and notice what patterns are emerging. We can see which areas are densely populated, and which perhaps are sparse, and discuss what that means for us now and in future.
These games still carry us through the same data, reflection and planning as many other workplace processes, but through a new lens; the lens of games. By viewing and designing the Night Sky and New Moon as games and a part of the bigger Amble RPG, we have created a process that is genuinely enjoyable, engaging and memorable.
Goodbye ‘ugh, it’s the monthly reflection meeting again’, hello ‘yay it’s New Moon time!’ Games like these have me genuinely looking forward to our weekly and monthly team meetings. Who knew!
The Amble troupe and I have a lot more games and gameful offerings up our sleeves, spilling into our every day workplace and work culture. We want to bring the joy, connection and investment of games into our jobs, and so far it’s been great fun!
I look forward to developing the Amble RPG further and sharing our progress. The untapped potential of this space, of work culture as a cooperative game, is so so exciting to me. Every time I even think about it I get excited all over again!
If you’d like to stay in touch with Amble and learn more about what we’re doing, you can subscribe to the Amble mailing list here. You can also follow us on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
This article was written on Wurundjeri land. The Amble Troupe pays respects to Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledges that sovereignty was never ceded.
All images from unsplash.com. First image belongs to Amble Studio and is by Rebecca Dahl. Second image by Jonathan Klok and is free on Unsplash.com.
