The Feedback Game
What is ‘The Feedback Game’ about?
It’s a game that gives you an insight into your own personality and can be used to start an in-depth conversation about each other’s attitude and behavior. By using the 140 cards with different characteristics you’ll be able to find an answer to questions like:
- What are my qualities?
- How do others perceive me?
- What are the qualities that I want/need to improve?
The card deck consists of two types of cards: strengths and weaknesses. Examples of strengths are reliability, sensitivity, honesty, modesty, creativity, and intelligence. Examples of weaknesses are moody, prejudiced, selfish, rude, careless, or pessimistic.
The standard manual describes four ways to play the game, but you can buy a more extensive manual, which offers 20 exercises.
What’s the source?
The game is created by Peter Gerrickens and can be ordered via his website. The website offers more games, for example, The Feelings Game, The Leadership Game, The Learning Game, The Quotations Game, and The Values Game.
Duration
It depends on the game you select, but it’s somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours.
How I’ve used it
You can use the game for team building, appraisals, coaching and counseling, career planning, development, and personal strengths. I’ve used it for giving and receiving feedback within the Scrum teams I’m currently coaching. The game helped in creating a clear image of how a person sees him-/herself and how someone else perceives that person. It also clarifies how well a team can assess the qualities of other team members. I’ve noticed the team found it quite difficult to assess each other and this resulted in some nice conversations.
What you need
A copy of the game would come in handy…
How to do this
Describing the rules isn’t really useful because you can only play the game when you have a copy of it, and the game itself contains a manual…
The result
The feedback game proved to be a useful tool as a conversation starter about attitude and behavior. By giving cards to each other with specific characteristics it’s possible to give feedback in an accessible manner. Especially for new teams or teams that are having some problems with collaboration, it will be a very useful game. You will get to know yourself better, and learning the other person’s characteristics will provide valuable insights and drive mutual understanding.
I hope this blog post inspires you to give this exercise a try yourself. If so, I would really like to hear about your experiences!
Originally published at www.barryovereem.com on March 26, 2015.
