Signal UX — Gamestorming Workshop
Teaching the games in the playbook for innovators, rule breakers and change makers.


Last week, Signal UX hosted a free workshop to teach people about Gamestorming.
The goal of this workshop was to teach games, tools, and creative strategies that attendees could implement into their own teams and companies right away. We also wanted to give everyone a chance to practice the games, hands-on.
If you don’t already know what Gamestorming is, it’s based on an amazing book written by Dave Gray. He describes it as a playbook for innovators, rule breakers and change makers. It’s a collection of unique games that help you develop creative thinking strategies, communicate better and generate new ideas at your company or startup. I recommend it to all product designers and user researchers. It’s also helpful for anyone who needs a bit of a push to help solve problems within their company.
Another great book with very similar visual thinking strategies is Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko. The toys he presents are very similar to the games that Dave Gray presents, and they teach you to generate more great ideas.
The Games
In Gamestorming, you have 4 different types of games; core, opening, exploring, and closing. Each type of game has it’s own purpose, and it’s important to remember that every time you open, you should close. Once you’ve closed a game, you’ll have an understanding of the problem that needs to be fixed, and your main priorities.
The games are almost all very visual, and they show the importance of visual thinking in creative thinking.
Our workshop only lasted 2 hours, so we had to condense some of the original games. Here are the games that we played. Click on the game to see a full description on Dave Gray’s website..
- Draw Toast
This is the best game to start a session with. It’s perfect for introducing visual thinking, especially to people who might not be used to drawing out their thoughts. - Empathy Map
This is a core game that’s extremely popular in the UX design field. You should play it anytime you’re trying to understand a user. - Cover Story
This is an opening game, and it’s one of our favourites. It forces you to establish the goals and expected outcomes for your company/product’s future. Cover Story is extremely visual. Envisioning where you want to be in the future is the best way to establish goals. - The 5 Whys
This exploring game helps you get to the root of a problem. It requires you to constantly ask yourself “why” until you can’t dig any deeper. It’s basically like talking to a 4 year-old that constantly repeats “why” every time you think you’ve explained something well enough. This one is great to play with your team, especially when you know that there is a problem, but you can’t figure out what is causing it. - Crazy 8s
This one isn’t in the Gamestorming book, but it has a very similar structure, and it’s the best game for quickly generating ideas, and forcing you to be visually creative. It requires you to develop 8 different ideas in just 8 minutes. It’s part of the original GV Design Sprint, so it’s great for digital product design. - $100 Test
This closing game is intended to help your team prioritize. You give yourself a hypothetical $100 budget to assign to all of the features of your product or service. It forces you to discuss the importance of your features with the rest of your team, helping you to get everyone on the same page, and decide whether or not you should eliminate certain things altogether. (We didn’t get around to playing this one at the workshop, but you should definitely try it!)
Thank You
Overall, the workshop went really well. A huge thank you to everyone who came out, we had a blast with you! We had a great turnout, and based on feedback, the games proved to be fun, informative, and useful. We’re happy to see more and more people implementing Gamestorming into their workplace, and we can’t wait to host another workshop in the next month!



Next Workshops
We’re always planning new product design workshops! Stay tuned for User Research and Design Sprint workshops in the near future.
To get notified when our next workshop opens up, join our Digital Product Design Meetup.
If you have any workshop suggestions, reach out in the comments, or email us at sophia@signalux.co or dayton@signalux.co.

